Today we are featuring the story and portrait of Tom Reershemius, a PhD student at the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
“I'm a geochemist which means I look at samples of sedimentary rocks I collect in the field using mass spectrometers. The composition of these rocks can tell us a lot about the environment at the time they were deposited, and incorporating our results into models we can simulate the evolution of the Earth's climate and major biogeochemical cycles over time. Over the past half century a lot of fundamental work in this field was carried out at Yale, so it's thrilling being here - half a year into my PhD the novelty still hasn't worn off.
My lab is currently in lockdown, along with the whole Earth and Planetary Sciences Department. I'm now back in the UK, waiting for the pandemic to end and catching up on reading that I suddenly have a lot of time to do. Other than volunteering to do the shopping for vulnerable neighbors and signing up to call and chat to people feeling isolated and lonely because of the shutdown, there's not a lot I can do to help - which makes me feel powerless and very lucky at the same time.
Hearing from family and friends in Germany, Israel, the USA and elsewhere really gives a sense of how global the challenge we're facing is. Will we learn from this that to combat problems that affect all of us, radically and collectively changing our way of life is the only sensible course of action?”
@surbhib42 #humansofoiss
