26 February 2009 Meeting my research scientist

**"I've Been Everywhere Man" **My first introduction to Heidi Roop was over the telephone. As part of the PolarTREC selection process I had a 75 minute phone interview with the team from Northern Arizona University of which I was, hopefully, to become a member. Heidi was so friendly and upbeat that I felt pretty comfortable by the end of the interview. Friendly and upbeat isn't half of the story!

Heidi, "my scientist," is one of the few researchers here in Fairbanks for the orientation week training. We have had some time to talk about our project, but have actually spent very little time together. Why? Because there is so much for me to learn that although Heidi is so very knowledgeable about field conditions and technology I have really had to focus much more on the PolarTREC induction than on team building with Heidi.

This is what I have learned: Heidi, raised in Wisconsin, has TRAVELED: as a child with her family and as an adult alone, with her friends, as an exchange student, with research projects and just to be travelling. Heidi has been to 6 continents and 28 countries. She has visited Tierra del Fuego, Tahiti, the Marquesas Islands, Tasmania, the Galapagos Islands and Svalbard Island 300 kilometers from Greenland. Her research has all been in the fields of science and geology. Her current project, in PaleoclimatologyThe study of the Earth’s past climates. in South Central Alaska, is to help finish up her masters degree by October and 2009.

What is next for Heidi? Her favorite place on Earth, she tells me, is in Maine where she would like to purchase an old lighthouse and convert it into a bed and breakfast from which she could work as a guide for kayak tours. And what is still on her "bucket list"? Well, Antarctica of course, that tantalizing seventh continent. She has an application pending that would allow her to work on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Project as a science technician, logging and handling ice cores or "holding the history of the Earth in my hands every day" as she puts it. What a woman!

Question for geography students: Can you name the four largest islands on our planet? How many of these has Heidi visited?