Get in-depth with Dr. Tiegan Hobbs on all things earthquakes! Listen in as we talk about the many (many!) cool projects Hobbs has on the go that take her from answering emails at her desk, to digging an eight metre trench in the wilderness, to (very very gently) throwing seismometers off a ship to measure the ocean floor. Hobbs discusses imposter syndrome and how she takes the attitude that, even if you don’t feel like you’re ready, there’s someone else out there who is less prepared than you, and they’re going to do it anyways. So be the imposter, and do it with whimsy!
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Introduction
Hello, everyone. Welcome to Beneath Your Feet, a geoscience podcast. I’m Veronica Klassen, science communicator, geology enthusiast and your host. Here at the APGO Education Foundation, our mission is to spark curiosity and passion for the geology of Ontario. Whether you’re a geology nerd, science enthusiast, or nature lover, this podcast is for you. Join us as we geek out over fascinating geology, uncover the hidden stories
and secrets of our extraordinary planet and explore the captivating world beneath your feet.
Veronica Klassen
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Beneath Your Feet. Today, I’m here with Dr. Tiegan Hobbs, who is a research scientist for the GSC, the Geological Survey of Canada, as well as an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia and the University of Victoria. She is also a lead scientist for the National Seismic Risk Model, which estimates the impacts of earthquakes on buildings and people across Canada.
Today we’re going to be talking about earthquakes, we’re going to be talking about faulting, plate tectonics, exciting things that we haven’t really covered in the podcast before, so I’m really excited to get into it. Thanks so much for being with me.
Dr. Tiegan Hobbs
Oh, thank you for having me. I’m really stoked.
Veronica
Awesome. All right. So to start, if you want to just tell me, who are you and what do you do?
Tiegan
Who am I? What a question, its a big one. I was born in… No, I’m a research scientist, as I think you already mentioned. So my main job is I’m the lead scientist for the national seismic risk model, which is a nationwide assessment of basically what are the likely impacts from earthquakes that could occur in or near Canada. So that’s sort of my main role. And then I also work a little bit on some active faulting projects looking for evidence of active fault lines.
Yeah. So overall, I would say that I’m a geophysicist and I work a little bit in some areas like geology, geomorphology and geotechnical engineering.
Veronica
Okay. So what would you say your kind of niche is within that?
Tiegan
I think the area that I have developed expertise that’s like a little bit more on the rare side is probably in the world of seismic risk. In the insurance industry, they have a lot of folks who are measuring seismic risk. But in the academic side of things or like, you know, government science, it’s not necessarily an area that you have a ton of people working.
And so that’s kind of the area that I would sort of consider my area of expertise that I most often get tapped for is like, oh, can you be a subject matter expert on this? Which is quite cool. I really enjoy that area and I feel like it does a really nice job of getting to blend the different areas that I’ve studied. You’re kind of combining, having to have a really good understanding of seismology and where earthquakes can occur and how big they’re going to be and how much the ground is going to shake. And then also have this understanding of like what is the built environment and how do we combine that scientific understanding with our engineering knowledge. And then even a step further to say, okay now you kind of have to have a bit of a communication perspective on–because this is very applied science, we want to make sure that we’re answering the questions that the decision makers have. And so being able to take all of that and then convey it to the people who need to understand it and get some feedback from them about like, yeah, what are the questions you have to answer in your day to day at work? And how can I make sure that the science that we’re doing is going to give you the right base of evidence to make the best decision that you can in your role.
So it’s yeah, I find it’s like a really neat intersection of science, engineering and society as well.
Veronica
Hmm. That’s so cool. So are you working in your day to day with those policymakers and engineers?
Tiegan
Kind of, yeah. Like, yeah, when I look at, what’s the roster of meetings for the week? It’s like yesterday I was talking to the National Building code some past groups in there. And then last week I had a meeting with some decision making folks out West here who are responsible for some health care assets. And they were thinking like, how are we going to make decisions right after an earthquake happens and how can we prepare ourselves to make the best possible decisions with the resources that we’ll have on hand. So being able to sort of help out with that a little bit and say like, yeah, well, here’s where the science is and here’s how it can best inform your decision making. And do the best I can to help them set them up to all to make good decisions. Yeah. And then I’ll have meetings with my engineering colleagues or, you know, working with students and yeah, it’s kind of I feel like I get to interact with really diverse groups of people, which for me is really great because I kind of like that diversity.
But there are definitely moments where you’ll be on one meeting and you’re talking about some really specific element of like, okay, how do we measure the really nitty gritty scientific concept, we’re in the code, like doing that kind of science side of things, and then you just totally have to pivot to like, for folks who are not geoscientists at all, like, what are they thinking in terms of how they need to understand what the impact of earthquakes will be?
So yeah, sometimes I feel like- I call it clearing the cache of my head.
Veronica
I love that
Tiegan
You reset, everything like, okay, now we’re going to different meeting.
Veronica
I love that idea. So then for you, like what does a day in the life look like? I know you kind of talked a little bit about all kinds of different things. What are those like projects? What what is a day in the life?
Tiegan
Yeah, this is a great question, because I feel like that’s the really opaque part. And like, I do it too, when I hear about my friends jobs, I’m like, what do you do? What do you actually do? Yeah. So I feel like, in today’s day and age, other desk jockeys, as I refer to us as. I spend a lot of time like answering emails and just trying to keep on top of the many different projects that I seem to be luckily wonderfully involved in. But like a bit overwhelmed by at any point in time with how many there are.
And then it’ll be kind of a mix of things. Like I said, sometimes I’m like working with a student, so we might be going through the specifics of the research that they’re doing and troubleshooting or debugging things, or just making sure that like we’re kind of generally following the trajectory of what do they need to do to answer the primary research question that they have and then write it up and get it out.
And then other times I’ll be meeting with decision makers. And I always find that really interesting, really rewarding, because it’s usually a conversation of trying to understand what their needs are and then see like, okay, what do we have that’s available? And like, what capacity do we have that could help support them? But also thinking, I have to think a little bit too, it’s a small team and so if we get a request for help, then we always want to help.
But it’s like, okay, could we help if every person in your category asked for help? And if not, then like, how could we use this opportunity as like a case study to set up things so that future people could also benefit from this interaction? So yeah, you’re keeping a macro view even while you’re trying to help an individual group.
And then yeah, I would say like a good chunk of time also goes to more what I would consider service roles. Serving on committees for, let’s say like the National Building Code or I’m in the editorial board for a journal, like a scientific journal.
And then also involved with some large scale scientific organizations. Actually, right now there’s two really cool ones that I’m involved with. One is the Cascadia Regional Earthquake Science Center or CRESCENT. And that’s kind of neat, it’s trying to bring together a lot of different researchers studying the Cascadia Subduction Zone that runs from California to B.C. It’s a big cross-border working group to really think about all the way from the science to the impact. So that’s been really cool to get to be involved with.
And then another group called SC 4D Subduction Zone in 4D. And it’s this really a huge U.S. Chilean project to try to better understand subduction zones over space and time. And so they’ve got a few different subduction zones they’re targeting. The goal is to make it a decadal science project. So it’s this like really huge collaboration of, I’m sure, like hundreds of scientists involved.
So you know, helping to support those efforts in whatever my role is and whatever committee I’m on.
And then, yeah, occasionally I also get time to do my own research, which is great, I try to like block off chunks of time that I can just get in the zone and really try to move things forward on my own projects too. Which is definitely the most intellectually fulfilling part of my job. But I think it’s cool because all the other stuff is is also incredibly rewarding and I think helps move all of the science forward which is neat.
Veronica
That’s so cool. And if you don’t mind me asking, what is your own research on right now?
Tiegan
I have a couple of projects, probably the two biggest ones I’m working on: One is looking at financial recovery modeling. So we have a national seismic risk model and it looks at the impacts of earthquakes in terms of building damage, casualties or other injuries, financial losses, disruption, generation of debris that will block the road. So we’re we’re sort of looking at when an earthquake happens, what will be the scene on the ground. And that’s really helpful.
But it’s also nice to know, okay, let’s say we’re past the response and now we’re into the recovery phase where we’re trying to start rebuilding the things that have been damaged. We want to understand who’s actually going to be paying for that recovery. Because ideally, you’d love a system where everyone has the means to rebuild their home or, you know, fix whatever was damaged. And here in Canada, we have quite high uptake of earthquake insurance, especially in western Canada. But there’s still quite a lot of folks who either don’t have insurance, earthquake insurance at all, or they maybe don’t have enough to actually cover certain levels of damage. And so we we call that like the protection gap.
And I think there’s maybe a concept that, you know, the government’s going to come in and help you pay for it. And so to me, this seemed like a really big perception, you know, a public perception that the more I dug into it didn’t seem to really align with what I think will happen based on what I know about the policies and the financial systems.
So I wanted to actually be able to quantify that. So I started working on building out some software that would allow me to estimate what percentage of people are going to be insured and what percentage of their loss is going to be covered by their insurance.
So I’ve been working on that to sort of get a better sense of like, what fraction of these costs, or what fraction of people are going to have chunks of money that they need to have available in order to rebuild their home. And just making sure that that information is you know, available to decision makers or perhaps to to people in general to sort of have a better, you know, maybe it’s like an awareness thing to to help people to understand.
So that’s it’s like a bit of a like nerdy financial project on the one hand. But I think also like to me it seems like a very important project to better understand, yeah, what will it actually look like in the months and years following an earthquake? Because maybe we sometimes are just thinking about like the minute after it happens, but not this like longer tale of recovery.
And then the other project that I’m really excited about is related to active faulting. So we generally use that term to refer to an earthquake fault line that has had an earthquake in the last about 12,000 years. Earthquake fault lines, you can think of them like volcanoes where it’s like it might not have had an earthquake recently, but that doesn’t mean it can’t have one again. So it’s sort of like a dormant volcano as opposed to an extinct volcano.
And we have a lot of fault lines, but we don’t know which ones are dormant and which ones are extinct. And so looking for this evidence of activity is sort of how we’re trying to figure that part out, because we’d like to know ahead of time so that we can make sure our seismic hazard models are good or that, you know, if people are planning to build a critical facility on top of one of these fault lines, you’d like to know what’s going to happen.
So me and my student Raoul at UBC have been working on this project for the last four years, I think, within the coast mountains of southern southwestern British Columbia. And we’ve been calling it Team needle in a haystack, because it’s very hard to find these things, especially in British Columbia. Because, you know, everything’s been recently glaciated and we have like really high erosion because we have this really moist climate and the terrain is really steep and you’re either in like really populated places like the lower mainland or you’re in like very remote places that are really hard to access, even though you might only be, you know, not far from a busy place.
So it’s been a really challenging project, but we’ve got some some new findings that are still very preliminary. So, you know, they’re not quite like ready to chat about yet. But we think that we have some pretty compelling evidence for an active fault line that was previously believed to be extinct. So it’s scientifically very interesting, of course, but it’s also like really impactful for communities that might be living nearby to that or any other critical infrastructure that’s running through the area.
So we’re running this fieldwork. We dug a big trench and we’re looking at the fault line and measuring the offsets and then taking samples so that we can send them for dating.
So yeah, those have been kind of the two really big projects that I think are quite impactful. And then, yeah, I’m also involved with a project called PACSAFE. Basically it’s a five year project to use ocean bottom seismometers to measure earthquakes off the west coast of British Columbia and specifically kind of targeting the region between the northern end of the Cascadia Subduction Zone and the Haida Gwaii region and the Queen Charlotte Fault.
So basically it’s like the area between Southern British Columbia, the Cascadia Subduction zone. A lot of folks are maybe familiar with that. But then as you go north, you get into this major strike slip folk called the queen Charlotte Fault that runs through Haida Gwaii and up into Alaska. And you can kind of think about that like the northern sister to the San Andreas Fault. And it has had very large earthquakes in the past. But the transition zone between the subduction zone and that strike slip fault is actually not as well understood as we might expect it to be because it’s off shore. And even though there have been large earthquakes, they’re not really close enough to population centers that it’s maybe been a really high priority or a really easy place to study.
So that’s why this project has been really cool to go drop these ocean bottom seismometers, record seismicity and try to get a much better sense of how does the deformation of the crust, how is that stress and strain actually being partitioned and how is that expressing itself on different fault lines as you go from this subduction system where one plate is sliding beneath the other into this strike slip system where the two plates are sliding by each other horizontally.
So yeah, that that’s also been a pretty cool project and I’ve gotten lucky enough to get to go to sea for the last three years every summer to actually be on the ship while we’re doing the work, which is something that I really love because I really enjoy field work.
Veronica
That’s so cool. Okay, so you’ve got these three of your own projects, I guess, just two of your own, and then one with PACSAFE.
Tiegan
Yeah, PACSAFE is like a big project with lots of different organizations. Science is really cool and sometimes you are kind of working on your own thing, like the financial modeling that I’ve been doing has been a fairly solo effort. But then other times you’re working on these projects with like so many different organizations, so many different people. And it’s cool because I find you get to learn a lot from the other people and you have the opportunity to work on like really cross-disciplinary projects because you can get all the different perspectives and the different expertise all coming to the same problem.
Especially for this active faulting work. I always think of it kind of like you’re trying to solve a mystery and it’s not so much like, Oh, I have this one method and that’s how I’m going to answer my question. It’s like I have a question and I’m going to like throw any method at it that I think is going to help us to solve the mystery. So like, you know, if it’s like a murder mystery and you’re like, Well, we need the person analyzing the blood spatter and like someone else, like some sort of weapons expert, like, I don’t know, like the forensic, whoever. So you really you have to have this team with different pieces of expertise to get all the lines of evidence that you need to conclusively say like, yes, this is a fault line that has ruptured at X date in the last 12,000 years, and therefore it is relevant to seismic hazard today.
Veronica
Wow. Okay. So you’re doing so many things, in summary, that all sound super exciting. So I’m just curious. I just want to like zoom in a little bit before we zoom back out. So when you are actually, out in the field, specifically with the Team Needle in a Haystack project, what is it that you’re actually looking for like in the world, What does a fault look like? What is the needle in the haystack?
Tiegan
Oh, great question. I think that is like a question that we’ve had to ask ourselves, right? I would say that generally these kinds of studies actually start at a desk, where you’re looking at some digital elevation model of the Earth’s surface and hopefully you have like high resolution versions of that and hopefully you have true digital elevation models where you’re looking at the ground surface, not like the surface of the trees, for example.
Veronica
Right.
Tiegan
And basically what you’re looking for there is any evidence of ideally like a scarp is what we’re looking for. So that’s where you have like a little change in elevation, sort of like a little wall, a high angle feature on other terrain that’s otherwise not as high angle or like a little break in the slope is maybe the easiest way to say it.
And we can get scarps that are caused by all kinds of things. So it’s not to say that every scarp that we see is a fault line, but those are sort of really clear indicators of faults because when a fault ruptures to the surface, it generally does produce a scarp. And so if that thing has been preserved, then yeah, it’s sort of like that’s the, the best evidence you could hope for.
So when you see one of these, then you have to start ruling out what are other things that could have produced that same feature. So for example, landslides will also produce like a little head scarp, which is right at the top of where the landslide starts sliding. It’ll sometimes preserve a little break in slope and then you get out into like the the run out area and the debris further downhill.
You can also get like rivers can carve out a little bit of a scarp or like a feature that might look very similar. You can also just get like the bedrock underneath sometimes will have a fabric in it and that fabric can end up generating plains of weakness and then erode along that plane of weakness. Then you’ll end up generating a scarp as well.
And so yeah, that’s sort of like half the battle is once you see one of these, then you still have to go through this whole process of elimination to figure out, well, what else could it be? We can also sometimes look for other indicators of faulting so things like basically rivers or streams that appear to be offset from their previous path. You know, looking downhill and there’s a river and then there’s like a little offset, or maybe the river continues, there’s a little offset and then an empty riverbed. And you might say like, okay, you know, a fault would have perfectly moved that previous river bed out of the way. And now a new one had to form. You can do the same thing with ridges or like interfluves basically any linear feature that’s been offset a little bit. And then depending in some other environments, you might be looking for other kinds of geo morphological features like shutter ridges or pressure ridges.
Basically, you’re kind of like looking for the evidence that would be left behind on the surface from fault movement. And so, yeah, generally you want to look for all of that from like satellite, you know, you want to look over broad areas and be able to identify these features. And then if you see some that you think are quite promising, that’s when you might want to go into the field and actually try to check out, yeah, is this feature the thing that I thought it was? Is there some obvious other interpretation? Maybe that’s when you go in to say is this a bedrock feature? Actually, can we like find the bedrock and see what the fabric is of that bedrock?
You also want to make sure, because we’re looking for active fault lines, in order to prove that it’s active, we need it to have ruptured into material that is young. So basically, if you have a bedrock that’s 30 million years old and you find a fault in it, you’re like, cool. But like, I have no way of knowing when that fault happened in the last 30 million years.
Whereas if you have a layer of, let’s say, soil or some other unconsolidated sedimentary material that, you know was deposited from a glacier that was receding. And if you can establish that that was from, you know, a modern glaciation, then if you see earthquake fault line evidence running through that unit, now you have some proof that like, okay, that’s an earthquake that’s happened recently.
So one of the things we’re also looking for in the field is–do we have a geologically young material on top of this fault line or at this scarp in order to determine, is this actually worth our while? Because will we be able to learn anything?
And then from there you might do, let’s say, some geophysical surveys where you might be trying to understand what does the subsurface look like?
And then from there, yeah, when you’re out in the field, if you’re you’re sort of like, okay, I’ve got a few different lines of evidence that say, this thing might be a fault line, I think it’s worth it. We’re going to dig a big trench. Often you’ll hopefully hire a backhoe. In our case, we didn’t have funding to get the backhoe we would have needed, So the team I, I feel so bad I was sick with COVID, so I was, oh, well they’re out there like breaking their backs, digging a hand-dug trench that was like eight meters long and a meter and a half deep or more at its deepest part. Yeah, they just dug this hide because they are champions.
Then it kind of becomes almost like an archeological dig. We’re like, pinning. Okay, here’s the different geological unit, here’s the base of it where it connects with the other unit and like, okay, here’s a structure where those two units are offset vertically on one side of the trench versus the other. And so you’re sort of like pinning everything really carefully and like checking in with each other, like, yeah, do we all agree with this interpretation? And then you document everything. And then you can start taking samples that you’re going to hopefully be able to do some sort of dating on. And then we also had a moment where we brought in some other collaborators as well. So we like covered up the trench and then came back with collaborators so that we could like get a fresh set of eyes because you want to make sure that your interpretations are not being like guided by, you know, something. There’s like some funny saying that if you send three geologists into the forest and they come back with the same interpretation, fire two of them. We can have different interpretations. So we want we want that like breadth of interpretation. And then we kind of duke it out with each other, like, well, what actually makes the most sense to in order to feel really confident that the findings you’re arriving at are really robust to criticism and to to alternate interpretation.
Veronica
Okay. Yeah. So important to have all of these different perspectives. And I feel like that’s kind of something you’ve talked about this whole time is just all of the different people that you’re working with and all of the different, you know, levels of expertise, all feeding into these projects. I think that’s that’s really cool.
One more like specific question that I have before we kind of zoom out, you mentioned with the PACSAFE project that you guys are going out on ships on the on the water to do fieldwork and that seems so completely different. And you’re digging trenches and now you’re out on the water. So could you talk a little bit more about what that looks like? Sounds exciting.
Tiegan
Yeah, totally. Such a cool experience. So when we’re going out to sea, here in Canada, at least, a lot of scientific work actually happens with the Coast Guard. So we’re heading out on a Coast Guard ship. We coordinate with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Coast Guard. You have like all these science groups that are trying to arrange what time can they go out on the ship and like, what are their science objectives and what weather do they need and all this. They make a big plan. We get our dates and then yeah, we load all the instruments on.
From my perspective as a scientist, it’s such a cool interaction because I think as scientists we often just work with other scientists and so yeah, getting the chance to do field research that involves support is really amazing because you get that chance to interact with other people first of all, and like learn from them. And really be thinking about like logistically what’s going to be the best flow in order to get this quite complex work done. You know, in this case it was like there were two projects on the ship at the same time. And so we had to load all these instruments on and then get ready. We were going to go basically throw those instruments overboard–gently. They’re meant to measure really delicate vibrations. So when I say throw them overboard, it’s like actually like you really really gently place them in the water. Then go somewhere else and start picking up instruments. And then we have to offload the data, quality check everything, and then recharge the batteries on them and kind of like rotate them around and then be ready to throw them back overboard somewhere else. And so it was like this really complex dance.
So like, yeah, how does the deck need to be organized? And every day it would be, okay, well, here’s our plan of, you know, what are the stations we’re going to visit today? What are we doing at each station? And so what needs to be prepared ahead of time and staged and we’d be checking them with these different groups of the technical facility operators who are managing all the instruments. And then you’d have the crew of the ship who were like the deckhands and the boats and who are actually like having to get these instruments on and off the ship. You know, that’s the really high stakes part of it. As well as then coordinating with like the officers up on the bridge, the captain’s in charge of the ship. So it’s like, yeah, what, what are our plans and how is it all going to work? And, you know, they’re the ones like really overseeing the whole operation.
You’re like reaching out to other collaborators to be like, Hey, do you need data from this area? Because we’re there and like, we can like, run the instrument that’s just already fitted to the ship, and collect some it for you if you want. And you’re really trying to like make the most of it by collaborating with lots of different people. It’s just so much larger scale than I think a lot of that terrestrial field work that I run now, which is like, you know, sometimes it’s just like me and Raoul out in the truck, like hitting a rock with a hammer.
Veronica
Yeah, that’s so cool. You almost have like two extremes of geology.
Tiegan
Yeah. And it’s neat because I feel like I got very fortunate that I got to do some really great field work when I was in grad school. And that included getting to go out on a ship like this to do very similar research. I think that those experiences are so important because doing this like really, you know, big field work that’s like really logistically involved, I think can be quite intimidating. And especially if you have no prior experience with it. So I think there’s like a huge mentorship role as well that makes it possible to be part of these really like, you know, Capital S science projects.
Veronica
Yeah, yeah, that’s so cool. And speaking of grad school, let’s go back a little bit. How did you originally become interested in geoscience? Like, what was the thing that made you excited or got you interested in pursuing this career?
Tiegan
So I grew up in Vancouver, B.C.. And in the nineties, or like early nineties, was sort of when Vancouver was finding out that it lived on a subduction zone that could have really large earthquakes because, you know, in like the sixties, seventies, eighties, there was an idea that like maybe the Cascadia subduction zone doesn’t have big earthquakes. So when they realized that it could, I have this these memories of suddenly, the schools got really serious about earthquake preparedness. We would make these little kits in a like four liter gallon Ziploc, whatever, every year. And you put like candy and little toys and like pictures of your family in this Ziploc bag. And then they put a metal bin in the like field, like in the yard. And then at the end of the year it was exciting cause you got to open up your little bag and eat all the candy and play with all the toys. And so it was like really exciting. But I remember at some point recognizing that like, oh, that was a kit in case there was a big earthquake. And my family couldn’t get to me very quickly or, you know, whatever something bad had happened. This was a little kit meant to make me feel better, if, like this disaster were unfolding and you’re like, Oh, that’s pretty morbid.
Veronica
Yeah, that’s terrifying.
Tiegan
Yeah. So it kind of was like something that I have these memories of feeling kind of connected to this thought of this earthquake peril. And then in high school, we had this amazing Earth science unit that we did in our science class where we actually got to pick P and S waves off of seismograms. And I remember being like, This is really sweet. Like, I’m pretty into it. Definitely into like earthquakes and volcanoes. And these, like, natural hazards were just like always really interesting. And so when I got to university, I originally went thinking I was going to do astrophysics, and so I was in a physics program and then realized that I was going to have to do a lot of physics that I was maybe not super interested in in order to get to the applied parts that I really like.
And they did this thing called Judgment Day at my university, where all the science programs set up a little booth in a basement near the end of everyone’s first year, because that was when you had to declare like, which direction are you going. And I was talking to the physicists and I was like, Oh, this doesn’t seem like it. So I was kind of wandering around like, Ooh, health science, like, that’s not for me. I don’t want to do that. What are my other options? I don’t want to do chemistry. Like, No, thank you. I like physics, but it needs to be more tangible.
And then, yeah, you see the geology department there, they’re like playing hacky sack and like, we love to go hiking and eat cookies and, like, learn about rocks. It was like, That’s so sweet. Actually, it’s great.
So anyways, I switched into Earth Science and kind of never looked back. Was able to carve out a path of doing like getting exactly what I wanted, which was, being able to do Physics applied to these earth science questions that were like so interesting and so compelling to me. And then from there I went to grad school and like I knew that I loved research.
But honestly, I would joke all the time, I was, like, I’m just going to keep going until someone realizes I shouldn’t be here and kick me out. I’m gonna see how far I get. Yeah, like, fingers crossed. Turns out this was called imposter syndrome, we just didn’t have a name for it yet.
So, like, I knew I wanted to do research, so grad school made sense, and I had the chance there to also explore a bit more of the civil engineering side of things, which seemed like a really perfect fit as well to tie it all together of, you know, natural hazards only impactful when it meets the built environment or like our, you know, our engineered world that we design.
So I had some concepts of like, oh, I like physics, I like natural hazards. And then things luckily worked out in a really great way to let me carve this path of getting to study them in a way that makes my brain feel great. Like I like this kind of research, but also like, feels very meaningful.
Veronica
Yeah, that’s awesome. So you mentioned dealing with imposter syndrome and kind of, you know, figuring things out as you go and finding geology after your first year. So with all of that, what would you say your best piece of advice is for students who are trying to figure out what to study or pursue for a career?
Tiegan
It’s such a good question. I think the biggest advice I would love to go back and give my former self is related to that imposter syndrome. That you might not feel like you’re ready or you’re enough to do this but there’s someone else out there who is less prepared and less than you, and they’re going to do it anyways. So like, don’t let that stop you like because I think, yeah.
Now I feel like I’ve had enough time to see all these instances where someone else will do it. And it’s like, oh man, I wish I’d done that. But like I wasn’t sure if I could or should, and they just jumped for it and good for them. And they’re doing great and that’s awesome. And I should learn something from that that.
Like if you actually overstretch that, the world will let you know. So instead of worrying that you’re overstretching, keep stretching.
And maybe a more specific version of that is that I think we have a concept that in order to be great in science, you need to be the smartest person in every class. You need to be, you know, one of those people who is not really working that hard and like doing great anyways. Right? And I just don’t think that’s true because. Again, it’s like, well, now I’ve been here for a while and I’ve seen the people who come and go and it’s not necessarily the ones who are brilliant, everything comes easy to them people who end up in a career, in research or career as a scientist.
I would say that having a passion for something and a curiosity and being ready to work hard for that passion is actually the most important feature. Because if you’re internally motivated, then that’s pretty hard shake. Whereas if you’re in grad school because you were very smart and everyone told you that smart people go to grad school, then you might not have the motivation that it takes to get through those moments that are really boring or really they kind of shake you.
I once realized I spent three months, I put a wrong number and into my code. And three months of work were wasted. And then I figured it out the night before a conference and I had to redo all of my analysis overnight, reprint my poster on the way to the airport. I didn’t sleep. It was terrible. And like the feeling of like, oh my God, I wasted three months of my life because I put this wrong number in. What a huge, dumb, dumb. How could I have done this?
But like, when you’re really passionate, you’re really driven about something. You can make it through those moments because you need to keep going anyways. If you’re really passionate about something, then don’t get turned away because whatever reasons you give yourself that like you don’t look like what the people who are doing that look like or you don’t have the best grades or like you want to do field work, but like maybe you’re not the most fit or the most outdoorsy. Keep going anyways and take this attitude that like, I’ll just keep going until someone kicks me out.
Because hopefully they won’t. Actually, there’s so much more space in science for so many people with so many different interests and skill sets and backgrounds than what we might be led to believe when we’re just starting out in the field.
Veronica
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know you mentioned that you have students as well that you are mentoring or like doing research with. Do you find that when you’re choosing students as well, that that passion plays a factor into that?
Tiegan
I would, yeah. I definitely would say that looking for someone who has that internal motivation and that drive to want to understand these problems is more important to me than what’s on someone’s transcript.
Are you driven by these questions that you’re asking? Do you know what you want to understand better? And are you thinking about these things, even if it’s not something someone’s telling you you have to think about?
And I’ve been so fortunate to get to work with some students who have been incredibly driven. Like you can always learn a new skill and you can always like shape the research project to fit the background that you have. But I can’t teach someone to be stoked about their research. I can’t teach them to really care. Like if you’re enthusiastic about the work, like that’s the part that we can’t manufacture. But all the rest of the skills we can probably find a way.
Veronica
Right, right, right. Thank you so much for that advice for students. One thing that I want to jump back on, I know you mentioned that you’re on an editorial board for a journal, and I know with a lot of the projects, it involves communicating to the public what your findings are or the implications of the projects. So I guess my question is like, what is the role of geoscience communication in your work and what is the importance of that communication work as well?
Tiegan
This is a cool question to get to talk about because I think it can be a little nuanced. So I was really fortunate when I was in grad school to get to take a class in science communication, and it was really neat. We started by talking about journalism and how do journalists approach communication versus how do scientists communication and seeing just this total mismatch. Journalists are like, oh, I need to get something out today and it needs to be really engaging versus scientists who are like, I need to wait until it is completely ready before I get it out because my reputation is on the line and that is the most important thing to me. And like how engaging it is is like so low down on my priority list.
How do we like, work together? If we were to work with journalists to convey our science and then even going further, like, how do we in general convey our science to the public?
We did this cool exercise where we had to interview four people in our lives about our area of study, and they had to do at least three different age groups. I will never forget that I interviewed my grandmother about earthquakes and it was so uncomfortable for both of us. Because, I went in being like I had these questions about earthquake science that I thought were really good introductory level questions. I would ask the questions she would answer them. They were questions that hopefully she would know the answer to. And I thought that she would. And she did not.
And that is totally fine. Because I didn’t really think about the fact that when she went to school, we didn’t have plate tectonics yet. Like what a paradigm shift since she has gone to school. And then also factoring in things like, you know, she went to school in a small town in Ontario as a woman. An education on Earth science would not have been something that was really important.
So even though I sort of knew in my head what her life story had been, I hadn’t really thought through the details of how that would play out and what information she had about my area of study, even though like she knows me and she’s like heard me talk about my work before. So it was this really awkward conversation, where I was asking her questions and she didn’t know the answer and she felt bad for not knowing the answer, and I felt bad for making her feel like she didn’t know the answers to things that like, yeah, why would she know?
So it was a really humbling experience for me. And I try to now really think through what is this person’s previous understanding of this based on their life experience and their maybe their interest in this topic. Or yeah, how do their identities interact with what they might already know and how they might like to receive information? And I’m not saying that that’s something I pull off all the time. That was a really cool course.
And then ended up working kind of like a freelance job writing articles for this organization called Temblor. They had this thing called Temblor Earthquake News, and for a summer or six months or whatever, I had a alert on my phone whenever a big earthquake would happen, and then I would just jump on my computer and start studying, okay, what’s the area that this earthquake happened in? What was the tectonic environment? Was this earthquake expected? Was it unusual in some other way? And then start dredging through social media of what are people saying about this earthquake? Are there videos coming in? Are there people reporting on what they’re experiencing actually in the zone where it’s happening?
It was such a cool experience because I really enjoyed the high octane, like, oh, an earthquake happened–canceled my plans, I’m staying up all night. And also the chance to learn about all these different tectonic environments around the world. The chance to really think about how is this earthquake experienced by people?
I think the most profound part of it for me was starting to expand my experience of studying earthquakes into the realm of the experience of living through earthquakes. I think that’s been progression for me throughout my career of we can understand earthquakes as well as we want, but at the end of the day, the thing we’re working towards is that people won’t suffer in earthquakes. And yeah, what is the source of the suffering and the damage? How do we better equip society to minimize that part? And I think that really was part of the trajectory change for me of getting more into risk science.
And yeah, wanting to be able to quantify that and then communicate it to the people who can make changes. And that’s different levels of government that maybe can make policy changes. But you also have individuals, you know, if you can get them the information, maybe they will decide to make a communication plan for who am I going to contact after an earthquake happens, giving people that sense of self efficacy and autonomy to do something today, no matter what resources they have to make themselves a little bit more prepared and safer.
So, yeah, this is a long winded way of saying I think that getting some experiences with science communication in the realm of earthquakes helped me to really solidify what is it that I am here to do and what do I care about? Yeah, it sort of shaped the direction that I’ve gone in.
And now in my current role, I really enjoy some of the communication in the form that it takes, which can be things like talking to an emergency manager and saying, what are the decisions you’re actually making on the day that earthquake happens? Talking to a fire hall and you’re like, where are you going to send your fire trucks? Because there’s going to be a period of time where nobody knows anything. But I have a model that we can at least get us started to think about where the most damage is probably happening.
I need to be able to transfer that information to someone whose not an earthquake scientist. And then also be able to ask the questions to understand the information they’re giving me. So I think like that’s probably the the most nuanced part of the science communication I do is like, not this public facing communication, but this one on one, how can I help this, like really amazing work that you’re doing to try to, yeah, minimize damage and suffering.
And then there are some like more public facing elements of the work that I do where I’ll go meet up with community groups and talk to them or, write something that might get published in a place where it’s being read by lots of different people.
It’s like such a cliche, but it is really challenging sometimes as a scientist, I feel like I’m having to move between two worlds a lot, where within science there’s this idea that you need to present things very precisely and the truth is the most important thing and like the robustness of the truth. But then when we talk with people, it’s not that the truth is not important, but like there’s a relational quality that is also really important. That might be the most dominating thing in how do I want to craft this conversation or interaction, to make sure that I’m meeting someone where they are so that the most important message that needs to get to them can actually get to them. Or if it’s a two way exchange of information, then the messages can go both way.
And so there are features of that that you need to have a totally different skill set than you’re using over here. And so, yeah, you’re trying to thread that needle of how do we make sure things are rigorous and like scientifically defensible while also making them useful to whoever this other person is who needs this information. Like this is the reason why we did it.
Even like one more step removed, I think within the scientific community, sometimes there can be a bit of an idea that you can’t do both. It almost feels like sometimes people are saying if you’re a good communicator, you’re probably not a good scientist or, like science, isn’t really your job or what you do. And I think that’s really challenging to confront, especially as a woman in science. You’re already having to work against some of those preconceived ideas. So then it’s really rewarding to get to work at these intersections. But I think it’s a challenge to manage these issues, and I hope that forward we’re getting better and better about recognizing the need to have both sets of skills and to to be able to go between the two more fluidly.
Veronica
Firstly, what you said about the whole point of it is to address people suffering and to figure out how we can help people. And getting lost in the weeds of the science really is losing track of the bigger picture. Yeah, I just think that that’s really important.
Tiegan
I heard someone described once like an approach to giving scientific presentations. They said most people design their scientific presentations to prove how smart they are. Whereas we need to think about them as opportunities to share our information. And if we thought about them that way, we’s design them very differently. Then it’s like, here’s exactly what I did and here’s what it proved.
And like, you can do both. There’s opportunity to show your work in a great way where you’re like, my goal here is for everyone in the room to understand two thirds of what I’m talking about. And then like, yeah, give the last third for the nerds, you know. That’s fine.
I’ve never called it that. I think that’s going to be my new phrase–last third for the nerds.
Like rethinking how we communicate. Like in science, we’re so used to being like, I need to establish that I know so much about this topic where it’s like, No, we already know you know, it’s great. Like, now how about let’s like, yeah, focus on how do I share that information with other people? And then especially when you transition to communicating outside of the scientific arena, then you need to like scrap that prove how smart I am entirely, and then people need to follow the entire presentation. Not even the last third for the nerds anymore.
Veronica
Yes, exactly. And that extra step, like you talked about, the difficulty of being a woman in science and dealing with prior perceptions and things like that. You said that sometimes there’s an idea if you’re a good communicator, then you’re not a good scientist, you’re not trying to prove that you’re smart, therefore you’re not smart or something like that.
And so, yeah, I think that’s so important. And so with that, if you could, what would you change about the perception of geoscientists in society? And I maybe want to make this a little bit more specific and say women geoscientists, or maybe people who aren’t traditionally viewed in a geoscience role?
Tiegan
I don’t want to like get a wish and ask for three more wishes. But unfortunately is a perception by some folks of all backgrounds that if someone is not a cisgendered man, not a white person, not of a certain age, it’s like we have preconceived notions about who is credible and who is a scientist and how do they carry themselves. And obviously, like it keeps people out of the field. It’s bias, like it’s it’s all these things we don’t want. Of course, none of us are going to say, yeah, I would love to continue having this closed preconception of who gets to be a scientist, but I think it’s even more damaging than that.
This is like my subjective opinion. We lose a lot of the fun, the whimsy, we lose a lot, in how we can experience science. Like we lose a lot of joy because like having fun and being joyful are not qualities that this archetypal scientist man has. And I’ve watched myself do it where I think for a long time I felt like I was trying to fit in to the closest version I could get to this person, while also walking the impossible line of as a woman, you can’t just like decide you’re going to look like a man because now you’re going to face like a whole new set of oppressive reactions. Because this is like impossible, you know, if I just am like, quiet and only try to speak with this, like, sort of, like masculine authority and I look presentable and like, feminine, but not too feminine and like, who even know what that means? I don’t know, we’re just going to try our best all the time and I feel like we’re not doing it anyway.
So it’s like I spent a lot of time trying to match what that was in order to gain credibility. And now I think it’s made me enjoy my work so much more, and like feel more authentic in myself and in my work to depart from that a little bit and say, actually, I’m going to convince you of my credibility with my work itself, but how I present to you, I’m not going to worry so much about.
It’s a hugely privileged thing to get to say that. That I’m in a position in my career where I have a bit of that flexibility to start to do that. As a white, cisgender woman, I also have like a lot of layers of privilege to allow me that perspective on it. So I really want to acknowledge that. But my hope is that by having these conversations and like by allowing ourselves to be a little bit more authentically who we are and the elements of our identity that don’t conform to this perception of who is a credible scientist, then we make it a little more normalized for the people who come after us or who who are here at the same time also trying to establish themselves.
So yeah, trying to think a little bit proactively about, with people that I mentor thinking about, okay, are you heading into a situation where I think you’re going to face negative reactions or negative feedback and think about like, how do I support them through that?
I had a situation very early in this role where someone was going to a conference and they were making a stylistic choice that was quite feminine with their presentation material, and you have the right to do that. Your stylistic choice does not affect the content of your science, which is great. But on the other hand, if we know that people will react differently based on how we present ourselves. The advice I ended up giving was something like, just know that this will be unusual and you might face negative feedback about it. So you can choose to not do it because you don’t want to have to deal with that negative feedback, but you are also free to choose to do it. Yeah, and I can be there and like try to, you know, make sure that there’s not any like outright inappropriate negative responses. Ideally, someday maybe that won’t be the case.
I’ve been very lucky to be in a lot of environments where people are trying very hard to change that perception, but it’s still very noticeable to me as the person doesn’t fit, that things are not awesome yet.
The more like that I present, who I actually am, as like, you know, kind of like a silly person. The more that I show of that, you’ll see sometimes people not being ready to receive that. And like, so of course, you know, you have to pick your moments of like, when can I do that without eroding trust in my authority and credibility.
But yeah, I just all that to say, I think we have a long way to go still.
Veronica
No, I just want to say that I really love what you said, that we lose a lot of the fun and whimsy and I would add like individuality as well, because we’re all trying to be like the general stereotype. And so if we’re not being ourselves and we are losing a lot. And I think that’s really sad. And we do better science when we are ourselves. So I love that you said that.
I’ve been so enjoying this conversation, but we should probably wrap up. What is your favorite geologic feature in Canada?
Tiegan
This is a tough question and I’m sure that you put it here because it’s a tough question. I think I’m going to go with Opal Cone. It is a little volcanic cone on the edifice of Garibaldi Volcano or Nch’ḵay̓, which is a volcano near Squamish, about an hour and a half outside of Vancouver. This little cone, I think most recently erupted in like about 10 to 12000 years ago. So it’s like a fairly geologically recent feature.
So you actually get this beautiful cinder cone shape and you can go hike out to it, but it’s not close enough that it’s really a busy hike. So basically it’s this young cinder cone on Garibaldi, this larger volcano. And so if you get there on a clear day, you can scramble up to the rim of the cone and you get a beautiful view of Nch’ḵay̓ Garibaldi volcano behind you.
You’ve got like glaciers coming down from one side when Opal Cone erupted and then it kind of ran out down this valley. And so you have this like deeply cut valley that’s been etched. And then if you look off the other side on the right day, then there’s this deep blue beautiful lake, glacial lake kind of color that’s pretty small. And it’s in this like rubble field. So it has like a very otherworldly feel.
And I think that is my favorite spot because it’s like you get to look out over all of these geological processes. And so it kind of like itches my geological brain in that sense. What processes did it take to form all these different shapes that I’m looking at? But it’s also just stunning. It’s this just stunning place to look at a volcano and something in the glacier and it’s surprisingly quiet. Your podcast is gonna blow this spot up.
It’s such a gorgeous spot. The first time I went there, I just remember thinking that it was so special that I got to be in such a beautiful spot, let alone so close to where I live and grew up. And then to also have a career where I get to study places like this and to understand why they look the way they do. It just was like such a beautiful moment of getting to experience this spot and my life in the context of this spot. So I think that one has a really special place in my heart.
Veronica
That’s awesome. That is so cool and a spot that I had never heard of and probably a lot of people haven’t heard of.
Tiegan
It’s not a big secret. I’m not like letting the cat out of the bag. But you should check it out if you’re in Vancouver.
Veronica
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, thank you so, so much for being with me today. I’ve loved talking about your career, talking about all of your various research interests and all of these really cool projects that you’re working on. And thanks so much for sharing advice and talking about imposter syndrome and all of those things. I really appreciate it. So thank you.
Tiegan
Thank you so much for having me. It’s yeah, I really value and respect the work that you do and having this podcast and bringing different speakers in and kind of asking some of these questions about how people get in their field and what excites them about it. Because I feel like going back to the whimsy and fun and what a great chance for people to get to talk about their work and and remind everyone that like, yeah, we’re in this because we’re excited about it. We like it. So yeah, thank you for the work that you do. It was really cool to get to chat with you.
Veronica
Yeah, of course. I really appreciate you saying that.
Outro
Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Beneath Your Feet, a geoscience podcast. I’m Veronica Klassen, science communicator and geology enthusiast. As a reminder, please note that the opinions and views expressed by our guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the APGO Education Foundation. If you want to learn more, visit us at GeoscienceINFO.com, where you can find our GeoHikes, podcast transcripts, and additional resources. You can also follow us on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at GeoscienceINFO or on LinkedIn and Facebook at the APGO Education Foundation. Stay curious and keep exploring the incredible world Beneath Your Feet.
Dr. Tiegan Hobbs is a research scientist for the Geological Survey of Canada and an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia and University of Victoria. She is the lead scientist for the National Seismic Risk Model, which estimates the impacts of earthquakes on buildings and people across Canada. She also works on projects related to understanding faulting and plate tectonics in western Canada, and is passionate about science communication, stakeholder engagement, outreach, and education.