Some days ago we met the sedimentologist Caroline Robinson,  but onboard of JR we have a big group of sedimentologists. Here is the interview of Jessica Hinojosa another of them. A super passionate one!

Q: Where did you study and where are you working now?

J: I did my Bachelor’s and Master’s at Stanford University. Then I went to the University of Otago in New Zealand on a Fulbright research grant, where I stayed for my PhD. Now I’m a postdoc at Caltech in the Geological and Planetary Sciences Division.

Q: When did you decide to be a scientist?

J: That’s a tough one. I’ve loved the natural world since I was a young girl, and I was always curious about it. I also had some great early mentors that inspired and encouraged that interest. But it wasn’t until I went to college and took and environmental science class that I really become committed. And now I love every minute of it!

Q: What is your job here in the ship?

J: I’m on the Core Description team as a Sedimentologist. In my “normal” life, I’m more of a geochemist, but I work with sediment cores regularly so describing them as we do here is a familiar task

Q: What the best thing on being a participant in this expedition?

J: Personnaly, I was excited about this expedition because the primary research objectives are very different from my own research. I study climate change overe the last 20.000 years, whereas on the ship, we’re looking for clues about large-scale tectonic changes over the past 35 million years or more. I feel like a sponge just trying to soak up all of these new concepts, models, and hypotheses from really smart scientists. And on top of that, it doesn’t hurt that we have fresh baked goods and a laundry service onboard the ship!