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Catherine Mcquillan

    • About Me:

      I am an geoscientist. I may also be called a geo-environmental engineer, environmental scientist, or environmental consultant.

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      I am lucky that Geoscience is my job, my hobby, special interest. I’m never bored with the project sites I work on. Without geodiversity there is no biodiversity. Everything is built on geology.

       

    • My pronouns are:

      She/her

    • My Work:

      I work on developing areas of land for building on. These may become houses, wind farms, quarries, factories in the future. I look at the soils, rocks, groundwater, rivers and atmosphere and how they interact, to see if there are going to by any problems for the people and the environment.

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      We need development but we also need to protect the environment, plants and animals that are already there and improve what is there. The geology beneath the ground impacts how soft/hard the ground is and what kind of water there is. I work with ecologists (plant and animal specialists), civil and structural engineers, acoustic technicians.

    • My Typical Day:

      I work from the office 2 days a week, usually 1 day on site and the rest from my home office.

      I start with checking my emails to see if there is anything urgent I need to do. I then look at lots of maps, geology (soils and rocks have difference chemicals and properties), old historical maps which may show quarries or coal mining workings and then lots of data bases..

      I use water cycle, carbon cycle, ecosystem knowledge. I do also use pythagoras theorem, need to work out the areas of cylinders etc so a lot that I learned in school I use daily.

    CV

    • Education:

      I went to a High School, and then a Grammar to complete ALevels

       

    • Qualifications:

      I gained 8 GCSES. I then had to move to a grammar school to do A Levels.

      I wanted to got to University. There are different pathways now with BTECs and apprenticeships available.

    • Current Job:

      Geosciences consultant/ geo-environmental engineer

    • My Interview

      • What did you want to be after you left school?

        Volcanologist. I wanted to run of and study volcanoes but I changed by mind in University as i discovered lots of other areas

        Tell us a joke.

        Are you looking for rock jokes? Let’s see what we can dig up

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