Pictured above students from St Paul’s High School at the Geoscience Careers Conference, with Head of Geography Mrs Anne Mackin

A level Geography students attended a ‘Geoscience Careers Conference’ in the Sacred Heart Grammar School, Newry

The aim was to make pupils aware of the range of potential careers available with a Geoscience (Geography) base at university. The following speakers gave a synopsis of their jobs and route they followed to get where they are in their careers:

Dr Alastair Ruffell from Queens University who works in geoforensics and has helped to locate the bodies of missing persons including one of the child victims of the infamous ‘moors murders’

Dr Suzanne Linnane from Dundalk institute of technology who is involved in a project to find water sources for the people of Southern Uganda.

Dr Dermot Smyth of Lonmin (NI) Ltd who works with a mining company exploring the availability of precious metals in northern ireland and is currently exploiting platinum in Co Antrim.

James Stewart of W5 Science Discovery Centre.

Colin Thompson of Land and Property Services (Ordnance Survey NI) who uses GIS systems to create new maps and help with eg fire service to identify hoax calls

Dr Marie Cowan of the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland whose current work is mapping the border countries and have identified the potential for ‘geothermal power’ in some areas. 

All speakers had travelled extensively with their jobs and had a wide variety of experiences along their career pathway. What was encouraging was the fact that there is a big demand for geoscientists but currently a small supply, so salaries in this field were high.

Given that there are jobs available, good pay and opportunity to travel – many of our A Level geography students are now considering university course in geoscience!