Interview: "Invisible microbial and chemical processes can have dramatic effects on our macroscopic world"

In this interview, iC3 Lab engineer Rory Burford discusses their role in supporting polar and glacial research, their academic journey in environmental biogeochemistry, and their interest in making science accessible to all.

Can you describe yourself briefly and what you're doing at iC3?

I run Polar MAGIC, more formally known as the Polar Laboratory for Microbes and Aquatic Geochemistry in Icy Climes. Our goal is to study these hidden, invisible processes — chemistry and microbiology — that can have dramatic effects on our macroscopic world — which I think is pretty fitting with a name like MAGIC. We’re actually part of the Department of Geosciences at UiT, but we were launched in tandem with iC3 to meet their needs for research into microbiology and biogeochemistry.

My background is in environmental biogeochemistry — that is, how chemical, geological and biological processes affect the natural environment — particularly in rivers fed by mountain glaciers. Unlike most of iC3, I’m not really an Arctic specialist: my PhD research focused on changes to tropical glaciers in Peru.

Credit: Andrea Watkins Pérez

Why is it important to study the chemistry of glaciers?

So, glacial systems can affect river chemistry more than people expect. Glaciers drive extensive weathering of the earth’s crust, grinding down rocks and releasing minerals into the water — including important nutrients, like iron. The organic matter exported from glaciers is also very unusual, as it tends to be both really old and also easily available to microbes. This all means that the chemistry of glacial rivers can have quite a big influence on the way that ecosystems function.

Which is already useful to know, but is even more important in a world where glaciers are melting, because we need a baseline understanding of how these systems work before we can predict how things might change in the future.

What about the support you provide as a lab manager? Why is it important?

The support I provide varies so much on a daily basis. In a single day I might calculate the concentration of harmful waste products for someone’s risk assessment, then help someone else to measure nutrient samples, and then I’ll meet with another researcher to help them plan their fieldwork or troubleshoot their results. And that’s just the human-facing element: on other days I might be working on the budget or researching a new sample inventory system.

It can be quite a lot to keep up with, especially during times where a lot of researchers need support at once. But in some ways that shows the importance of having someone who is familiar with the instruments and the methods to help make sense of results. The alternative is just to trust the machines, and they have no way to check if a method is working correctly — which is often not the case with real-world samples.

What technologies or methodologies are you most excited about in your lab?

I’m quite eager to explore the different uses of our current analysers. The TOC-L should be able to measure inorganic carbon, or potentially some of the particulate fraction, and we should be able to make methods for iron and sulphate for the nutrient analysers.

Personally, I’m also excited to see — or get involved in — the development of in-situ sensors, which measure chemical analytes directly in the river. I think there’s a lot we could learn if we were able to monitor river chemistry at more frequent time intervals.

Credit: Rory Burford

If you could change one thing in science, what would it be?

It’s difficult to pick, but if you’re limiting me to just the one, then I’d have to say the culture where publication count is given so much more weight than non-research tasks.

The bulk of teaching and service roles — things like sitting on EDI (Equity, Diversity, Inclusivity) boards and administrating PhD defences — are given to female academics. These tasks are extremely important, but do nothing to help your research profile, which means that female academics are more likely to have to do research in their own time in order to keep up with their colleagues who don’t do as many teaching and service tasks.

Which then leads to this leaky pipeline effect where we see plenty of women entering universities, but fewer and fewer in senior research positions. So yeah — either universities need to distribute the work more fairly, or they need to start acknowledging the value that these tasks bring. Ideally both.

You are also a freelance science communicator on Youtube. What are you presenting in your videos?

When I have time and energy, I make explainer videos, where I will take something that interests me and explain the science behind it. One of my big frustrations from working in the academic bubble is that there is very little transfer of knowledge between us and the outside world.

So I suppose my videos are a tiny attempt at reaching out to all those outside of my niche little field — especially people like my dad, who might be interested in something but have never had the chance to learn the “why” of it all. I mostly make videos about climate science, because that’s what I feel most confident in explaining publicly, but I’d like to branch out a little more over time.

What does an ideal day off look like for you?

It varies so much depending on how drained I am at the time! I might go for a run, curl up with a book, or play games like D&D (Dungeons & Dragons) with friends. I guess the two things that will always be part of my ideal day is spending time with loved ones and enjoying a good meal.

Credit: Mariana Esteves

If you could travel anywhere, where would you go and why?

Japan. I’ve always wanted to go to Japan — for the beautiful mountain scenery, incredible food, and also for the culture. I grew up doing judo, which gave me a lot of interest in the language and cultural traditions of the land.

What’s one thing you’re looking forward to next year?

Finally going to Japan! My partner and I were meant to go in 2021, before the pandemic cancelled our plans. We have booked tickets to go next year as a delayed honeymoon.

If you could share a motto, what would it be?

Ha. I’m not sure if this is something you can post, but right now, I’m trying to embrace the maxim “Fuck it, we ball.”

Perfectionism is such a massive problem in academia; it was a real issue during my PhD, and it’s something that I have to fight to ignore in just about everything I do. And “Fuck it, we ball” is the perfect antidote to that: it’s about letting go of our perfect vision and having the confidence that our best is good enough as it is.

Rory Burford is the iC3 lab engineer, working at UiT The Arctic University of Norway in Tromsø, the capital of the Arctic. To find out more about their work at the Polar MAGIC Lab, please check this, or contact them by email.