RESEARCH PORTRAIT: SHAKTI RAJ SHRESTHA

PhD student at the Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University

• What is your area of expertise?

With a BSc Physical Geography and a MSc in Disaster Risk Management and Climate Change Adaptation, I am an expert at not being an expert. Instead, I have invested my time acquiring a broad knowledge base, encompassing natural to social sciences. I believe holistic knowledge to be necessary to navigate in the complexity ridden waters of Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) with a critical mindset and drawing inspiration from different fields.

• What sparked your interest in natural hazards and disaster science?

While being always interested in natural hazards from a natural science perspective, it was being accidentally involved in the response to a fire raging is a remote town of Chile that made me aware of the importance of understanding hazards from a social perspective.

• If I could only work on one problem/issue/­challenge in natural hazards and disaster science...

It would be bridging science-to-policy, because I believe that the shortcomings of adaptation can be often attributed to poor management practices.

• What book or paper has been most influential to your career and why?

The latest one that I read is Disasterology. Samantha Montano sums up the two years of my MSc in a few hundred pages, all told from her personal experience and with a light, engaged, tone as practitioner and academic in the field of Disaster Risk Reduction. Must read!

• What do you like to do when you’re not working on research?

I love climbing and I never waste a sunny weekend not going out to the crag!

• What is your golden tip for early career scientists?

Never be afraid to stand up for your rights and your wellbeing. Research is work, you do not need to sacrifice your life for it!

PhD student at the Department of Political Science and Law, Swedish Defence University

• What is your area of expertise?

I’m mainly concerned with ontological security studies and narrative analysis, applying it to the area of environmental security where I examine how disasters are made sense of in the context of hostilities and conflict.

• What sparked your interest in natural hazards and disaster science?

I found that discussions on disasters and conflicts often exposed a contradiction in how they were thought to interact. There are fears and worries that conflicts and hostilities will worsen as natural hazards are being intensified in the wake of climate changes. Yet there also an abundance of accounts regarding the resilience and compassion among disaster stricken communities (conflict-affected or otherwise). Puzzled by this apparent contradiction, I wanted to know more.

• If you could only work on one problem/issue/challenge in natural hazards and disaster science...

I’m not entirely sure I could, because my mind is fairly scattered and prone to spontaneous explorations of whatever comes to mind.
 

• What book or paper has been most influential to your career and why?

Scott Watson’s book International Order and the Politics of Disasters. For better or worse, his book made me rethink my entire project well into my second year of writing my dissertation…

• What do you like to do when you’re not working on research?

I have developed a slight addiction for bouldering and, despite my fear of heights, I look for every opportunity to climb some more.

• What is your golden tip for early career scientists?

Get going with the empirics, your research problem will come to you.

PhD student at the Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala university

• What is your area of expertise?

I study and model volcano deformation, which is how the ground moves when magma accumulates under the surface. My main interest is how crustal heterogeneity, such as layers of varying stiffness or fractures and faults, influences the shape of such intrusions and observations on the Earth´s surface, and consequently, our interpretation of where the magma is located and how much it may be.  

• What sparked your interest in natural hazards and disaster science?

After I finished school, I spent a year working in Iceland. A few weeks after I arrived, a volcano started experiencing unrest. Because the volcano is located under a glacier, there was a chance that, in case of a subglacial eruption, flood waves of meltwater would flow down the river next to which I lived at the time. As a result, we got evacuation plans. In the end they were not needed, because the magma eventually surfaced north of the glacier and far away from any settlements or infrastructure. None the less, coming from a country without major earthquakes or active volcanoes, this left a huge impression on me and sparked my interest in volcanology and volcano monitoring.

• If I could only work on one problem/issue/challenge in natural hazards and disaster science...

It would be impossible to decide, because I think it is important to ask any research question in a wider context, not as an isolated issue. However, in terms of volcanic processes, I would like to work towards dynamic and more realistic models of magmatic subsurface processes. It may not be the answer to all problems, but it would hopefully help with volcano monitoring and short-term hazard assessment during periods of volcanic unrest.
 

• What book or paper has been most influential to your career and why?

The most influential paper to my career so far is probably “Volcanic plume height correlated with magma-pressure change at Grímsvötn Volcano, Iceland” by Hreinsdóttir et al. (2014).
When I first read it, I really liked the idea of connecting two different research approaches, in this case models of volcano deformation and plume height, through common or connected parameters, which here were the pressure change and magma flow rate. This article later became one of the corner stones of my MS-thesis and the multidisciplinary aspect, which I liked so much during the first read, is now an integral part of my PhD project.  

• What do you like to do when you’re not working on research?

When I am not working on research I like to knit and to spend time outside taking photos or simply enjoying nature.

• What is your golden tip for early career scientists?

Never stop being curious and keep asking questions. You either get answers and learn something, or you can try to find answers yourself in your research. Since I only started my PhD a year ago, I cannot really tell if this is a golden tip, but at least so far it worked for me.

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PhD student at the Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala university

• What is your area of expertise? 

My research focuses on Natural Hazards in the coastal zone, mainly looking at extreme conditions and currently working on compound events from hydrological and oceanographic conditions.

• What sparked your interest in natural hazards and disaster science?

Since my childhood, in the vineyard and farms, Natural Hazards have always been impactful to our community which led my curiosity and will to understand better those processes. It continued growing with time and acknowledgement of disasters as the avalanches that hit the town of Flateyri (Iceland) in January 2020.

• If I could only work on one problem/issue/challenge in natural hazards and disaster science...

It would be difficult to choose, because there are so many interesting natural phenomena.​
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• What book or paper has been most influential to your career and why?

I think it would be some parts of the 6^th IPCC Assessment Report by its successful international cooperation and the topics covered within a multidisciplinary approach.

• What do you like to do when you’re not working on research?

I am an enthusiast of the 3B’s : Bike, Bake and Beers.

• What is your golden tip for early career scientists?

For me, my ingredient is to find a way to enjoy and stay motivated in what you do both at work and outside work in balancing both.

PhD Student at the Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University

• What is your area of expertise?

I am studying extreme precipitation and wind events associated with atmospheric rivers. One of these regular rivers in the sky can carry as much water vapour as the Amazon river, so when an exceptional one makes landfall, it can lead to huge socioeconomic impacts. My work tries to understand how different physical processes (focusing on air-sea interactions) modulate the occurrence of atmospheric rivers and how these will change in a future climate.

• What sparked your interest in natural hazards and disaster science?

I always enjoyed spending my time outdoors and it is very important to know if the weather would be good for the activities you want to do. Where I come from, Catalunya, to have good waves for surfing or fresh snow for mountaineering is complicated and it’s usually associated with different natural hazards. For me learning to understand how the atmosphere and the ocean work was a very interesting process (still ongoing) to have even more fun later in the mountain or the ocean, but also to be safe out there.

• If I could only work on one problem/issue/challenge in natural hazards and disaster science...

It would probably be associated with coastal hazards, because in the last years, I have witnessed how the coastal areas of Catalunya are in a thread by more and more by stronger storms, floods and sea level rise due to climate change. All this combined with decades of over-urbanization of the coast is leading to the disappearance of the beaches and the ecosystems. 
 

• What book or paper has been most influential to your career and why?

A book that was very influential for me was “Surf Science: An Introduction to Waves for Surfing” by Tony Butt. This book brought together my passion for surfing and forecasting waves with the actual science behind it and pushed me to keep learning about everything related.

• What do you like to do when you’re not working on research?

As I already said I love spending time outdoors and practising sports like surfing, hiking, ski mountaineering and climbing. Also, I have a big passion for music and a perfect evening for me would be to listen to some live music with my friends.

• What is your golden tip for early career scientists?

I am an early career scientist myself, but I would say that to be passionate about what you are doing is important to keep yourself motivated, but also it’s very important to have other interests. Don’t spend all day just working, your life is much more than your PhD.