Exclusive interview: Dave McGarvie

VIPS Team

Thanks for joining us for an interview! Can you briefly describe yourself and what you do?

Dave McGarvie

My name is Dave McGarvie. I work primarily in Iceland, and I’ve worked on a variety of volcanoes and volcanic problems there. I have a particular interest in rhyolites. In the last couple of decades, I changed tactic from looking at subaerial rhyolites and their geochemistry, to looking at rhyolite volcano-ice interactions as they were less studied when I re-started my research career in 1996, and now they’re much better studied.

VIPS Team

How would you describe your approach to conducting research?

Dave McGarvie

I still believe that good fieldwork with careful, appropriate, and relevant observations is the foundation of good volcanology. Sadly, I’ve seen many examples throughout my career of poor observations being made by people and leading to poor science. For example, hasty collection of samples for a geochemical study without understanding the volcanological context. Such poor studies lead to misleading interpretations that can persist for a long time before people correct them. When I’ve been working with my students and colleagues, I stress that good fieldwork is absolutely the foundation.

VIPS Team

What motivates your research?

Dave McGarvie

I like the discovery and the exploration, going to remote places and finding new things that nobody’s actually looked at before. You know, as a geologist in Iceland you walk places where no other human beings have ever set foot. That’s quite a privilege. It’s quite special. So yeah, that’s a large part of it for me. And quite often, I’ll be sitting up somewhere thinking, “I’m getting paid to do this!” Luckily, in Iceland there’s lots of wonderful unexplored remote places where there is great geology still to be explored.

VIPS team

One of the hardest questions. Do you have a favourite volcano or do you have a volcano that you think has taught you the most?

Dave McGarvie

I would have to say Torfajökull because that’s the volcano where I did my PhD, and where I first took a proper look at rhyolite volcano-ice interactions. It has got such a variety, and it really opened my eyes to how much more interesting rhyolite volcano-interactions are compared to basalt. My basalt friends won’t like that, but it’s true.

VIPS team

Why is your research relevant? And what are the possible applications for your research?

Dave McGarvie

It is particularly relevant to local communities and scientists in Iceland, because I don’t think the Icelanders have a full understanding of what can happen when volcanoes and ice interact. This is despite the fact that it’s very commonplace in Iceland. The Icelanders have a good handle on what happens with the main volcanoes that pop off frequently, for example Grímsvötn. They got a wake-up call in 2010 when Eyjafjallajökull erupted, but they had a great plan sorted out for evacuation when it did erupt, and it was successful. And whilst other parts of the world are more aware of the problems and hazards from ice-capped stratovolcanoes, I think that more work needs to be done in Iceland on these.

VIPS team

How would you define your role as a scientist in society, and what outreach do you do?

Dave McGarvie

I believe it is vital for scientists to communicate their research to the wider community and to the public, wherever possible. I have given dozens of talks to various public audiences, and I love it, but it is quite hard work. It can be harder to convey complex processes to members of the public than to scientists.

I am active on Twitter (@subglacial) and post the occasional volcanological image with a bit of a description about it. I have met people at some public lectures that have said that they really enjoyed what I said on Twitter and that is why they came along to my lecture.

And of course, when eruptions go off in Iceland or there are other discussions about volcanism in the world, then the media gets in touch. And I find it quite interesting (irritating, in fact) that there are certain people who like to put themselves in front of the media, irrespective of their knowledge of the subject. I have found myself on occasions contacting journalists on the quiet and correcting some of what my colleagues have said. I’ve got a strong view that not just anybody should be talking to the media about volcanic eruptions, but it should be somebody who’s well informed, and can give a deeper background to the volcano, or to the volcanic area, because they have worked there.

VIPS Team

As you’ve done most of your work in Iceland, why Iceland?

Dave McGarvie

If you’re looking for the best place to study volcano-ice interactions with the widest variety of compositions, that has to be Iceland. Although, in the past few years I have been working on a Chilean volcano that contains a surprising diversity of volcano-ice interactions, and I’m looking forward to writing up this research.

VIPS Team

What do you consider your biggest achievement in your career? Do you do you think you’ve ever had a breakthrough moment?

Dave McGarvie

I’d say my biggest achievement has been to successfully nurture good PhD students, giving them a good experience both in the field and in support afterwards, all aimed at enabling them to do good PhDs and publish good papers so that they can have the option of developing academic careers. The ones who are really good, they are wonderful to supervise. They can be difficult at times, because they’re very challenging and they can hold strong views not yet grounded in experience. But when they learn to listen and be respectful then they can produce very meaningful work. Other achievements in science? Some were significant to me, but to the wider community there they were probably not significant.

VIPS Team

Do you have a biggest failure that you want to share?

Dave McGarvie

I guess my biggest failure was… One student, from day one, didn’t like me. It was a project that I initiated on cooling fractures in lavas, for which I had identified many world-class exposures in Iceland. I gave the student a huge amount of support, but when only the two of us were together they made their dislike of and disrespect towards me rather obvious. Sadly, right at the very end, after I had worked hard to help them finish their PhD, their nastiness towards me became so unpleasant that I said I just don’t want anything further to do with them, and so I took my name off two papers that I had co-written, and moved on. In hindsight, my failure was that I should have stopped supervising this student as soon as I realized that they were going to be continually unpleasant towards me. I should just have said “Yeah, sorry, this isn’t working. I need get you a replacement supervisor that you do get along with.” That would have freed up so much of my time to invest in other students and other projects. In terms scientifically, what have I failed in? Nothing springs to mind, I always kind of made progress on everything I’ve worked on.

VIPS Team

What are the biggest learning experiences you’ve had?

Dave McGarvie

I think it was learning how to do fieldwork in remote locations. And being sure that when I left a student in their field area, wherever they were, that they were sufficiently well equipped, both mentally and physically, to actually cope. There’s quite a burden being a supervisor in these situations, as you feel a sense of responsibility when you abandon a new student in the field (with a field assistant, of course). But I think it is hugely valuable for students to do work in the field without supervisors around, as this helps the students to evolve into researchers, and in a more ownership focused way. Part of the learning process for me was realizing that I don’t have to be with students all the time.

VIPS Team

Okay, what was your motivation to start down this career path in the beginning?

Dave McGarvie

It was an accident. I‘d worked for four years before I went to university, and I planned to get a job straight after my degree. I had even signed a contract with an oil company to travel the world and do mud logging and earn lots of money. And then my undergraduate dissertation supervisor came and said, “we’re having trouble finding somebody to do this PhD in Iceland. Would you want to talk about it?” On quizzing him it turned out that adequate and smart people were applying for it, but there was nobody that they felt could actually spend three months in a remote part of Iceland and produce results. So I wasn’t offered the PhD on the basis of my intellectual ability (sadly), I was offered it on the basis of being tough enough to go out achieve something worthwhile by working solo in what was then a remote and difficult field area. When I thought about it, I realised okay, when am I going to get the chance to spend six months in Iceland? And once I got my teeth into it, it was amazing. Those were the days when you went out and you spent three months mainly on your own.

VIPS Team

And you have been in academia ever since?

Dave McGarvie

No. After my PhD I decided to do something a bit different to enhance my potential career prospects, so I shifted to doing carbon isotopes in primitive meteorites. During that period, unexpectedly my wife became pregnant… a few years before we’d planned. At that stage I figured I was a long way off from getting a lectureship and the stability that brought with it. Even though I had a couple of postdocs agreed and lined up, I jumped out of academia for a decade to help raise the family. I went into publishing, initially as an editor, commissioning books, then lastly, I taught publishing at The Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, Scotland. However, during that decade I also worked as a geosciences tutor for The Open University (OU), and maintained my passion for geology through teaching. And then a job came up at the OU which I got, and I was there for 22 years until I took early retirement last year. I now have an honorary researcher position at Lancaster University, which is great as I have lots of research to write up, more opportunities to supervise students, and of course I’m still going back to Iceland as there’s lots yet to discover and explore.

VIPS Team

Have there been any major setbacks you’ve encountered in your career?

Dave McGarvie

The only major setback is lack of time, as my OU job only had a research allocation of 22 days per year. Thankfully for me, my family has been very understanding of me working evenings and weekends, and using my annual leave for fieldwork. I do it because I have a passion for doing research, and when you’ve got students you ought to spend your time supporting them. They have always been the number one priority. Setbacks have been… funding rejections. But I discovered that there’s a small pot of money in the university for use if you’re doing field-based work, like I do. I also built a lot of good links with other universities and colleagues, who had money to enable me to get my research to move forward.

VIPS Team

Excellent. Okay. And I guess the last question is, is what advice would you give to the early career researchers?

Dave McGarvie

Three bits of advice, Firstly, get one or two papers done. Like it or not, that’s your currency, that’s what will get you your postdoc. Doing the research isn’t enough; showing you can do it and deliver the outcome is vitally important. Secondly, diversify a bit. Make it clear that you understand more than just your particular area of research. And thirdly, outreach. Make sure that you disseminate your research as widely as possible, and engage with the public – because that will teach you how to communicate with people and should you end up in an academic career, either involving teaching or outreach or both, the skills you develop at this early stage will be absolutely vital to your career (and will be very attractive to an employer).

VIPS Team

Thank you, Dave.

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