ECR Alumni Case Study – Catrin Harris

What did you study at university?

I went to the University of Bristol to study an Integrated Master’s in Chemical Physics. So, the fundamentals of chemistry and physics, and how materials work, with my Master’s project looking at the crystal structure of thin films of uranium. There was no CCS in Chemical Physics and I didn’t come across CCS at all during that time.

After I finished, I found it difficult to get a job as I didn’t know really what I wanted to do. I actually worked for a bit in a social housing organisation. They wanted to know what their carbon footprint was and what they could do about it, so I was kind of consulting for them, informing them about different technologies, such as electric cars, and how you could use them, etc. While I was working there, I applied to a range of different things but the most interesting positions I saw advertised were PhDs. I knew I wanted to do something that was a bit computational and practical, as well as something that also had real world application in climate change.

That’s when I came across the PhD at Imperial looking at geological carbon storage. I vividly remember a moment when I was at the local beach picking up a rock and thinking “how cool is it that I can look inside this rock and see where fluids go, and we can maybe make the world a better place from doing that.” So that was how I entered CCS – I started a PhD in it without really knowing anything about it, just being curious!

So, it was a rock more than CCS itself that led you to it?!

I’m fascinated by materials and, during my undergraduate degree, I had this idea that I wanted to work with materials and climate change. This PhD was really interesting as it enabled me to look at the natural world and how we can interact with that, with an application-based focus.

Making these choices can feel very overwhelming. You can think, I enjoy research, I enjoy all these things. How do you pick a topic? Quite often, for researchers, it’s a combination of factors. Do you want to be standing in the lab all day doing experiments? Or do you want to be sitting behind a computer? There are a lot of considerations alongside the topic itself, including the people you’ll work with. The support offered to me from my supervisors before, during and after the PhD has been critical to my journey.

It’s fascinating to hear your thought processes. I think we can all have the impression that everyone maps out their career journey, but it’s just not true, as has been shown by so many of these case studies. What was the PhD you decided to do?

My PhD was in geological carbon storage, looking at how capillary heterogeneity – that’s the different layers within the rock structure – impacts how the CO₂ can be trapped in the subsurface. One of the things that stands out about my PhD is how it was affected by Covid. I started in October 2019 and it was supposed to be a lot of lab work to begin with, but then we were hit by the Covid pandemic, which changed everything. So, I ended up doing some numerical modelling work looking at how these layers buffer and trap the CO₂. I also did several experiments in the lab at Imperial College London – if you’ve ever gone for a CT scan at a hospital, that’s what I was putting my rocks into and then injecting fluids to see where the CO₂ went, so we can try to make predictions at a large scale.

As well as that, I did a couple of experiments at a Synchrotron, a kind of international science facility. I did my experiments remotely in Australia with my collaborators, and I also went to France where the European Synchrotron is. It’s basically a huge scanner, a kilometre-wide ring, that you use to accelerate the X-rays around to get a really powerful signal and see more clearly what’s happening within the rock.

I also took two breaks to do internships during my PhD, which was great. I did one in a carbon capture start-up and one with the UK Government. It was really interesting to get a wider look at the CCS supply chain. In the civil service, I was looking at critical minerals, something quite different, but thinking more about the bigger picture rather than just focusing on particular research projects, or a particular type of research.

When did you start engaging with the UKCCSRC?

I got connected with the UKCCSRC through different events and also as part of the ECR Working Group. Then I was successful in my application for an ECR Collaboration Fund award to go to Australia – one of my PhD supervisors was based there. But, because of Covid, we had to scale that back, which is why I ended up going to Ghent to do some experiments looking at hydrogen storage.

Catrin in Ghent on a UKCCSRC Collaboration Fund funded visit

My supervisor from Australia was also visiting Ghent for a project, so I was able to meet him there, which was great because – even though we’d spoken every week nearly without fail, for 3 years – I hadn’t met him before that in person. That trip was one of the things that made me feel more confident about moving abroad, because I’d spent that few weeks there, having the experience of being in an international lab and with an international research group, and realising it didn’t feel that different from those in the UK.

We’re thrilled to have been part of your journey in that way! How did you end up moving abroad to continue your research?

I finished my PhD about a year ago and started looking for different opportunities. A friend pointed out the advert for the postdoc I’m doing now at Utrecht University. I started this research position at the Copernicus Institute for Sustainable Development, in Utrecht, in February, and it’s my first time living outside the UK. It’s one of the fun things about academia, that you can move around easily, researching different topics and experiencing life in new places.

I’m looking at how different carbon dioxide removal technologies, like DACCS, BECCS and enhanced rock weathering, feed into integrated assessment models. We’re building upon existing models, as well as building new models where they don’t yet exist for these different technologies, and looking at how they might be deployed to help us reach net zero. Our models contain economics, as well as the physical limitations and constraints on how these different technologies might scale. It’s a completely new topic for me, especially the economic side, but I love learning new things. To me, every day’s a school day.

Also, I had thought that being in a completely new field would mean I wouldn’t know anyone but actually, thanks to the UKCCSRC having such a wide membership, I’m staying connected with various people I’ve met at different conferences and events.

What’s it like living and working abroad?

Overall – it’s a dream! I love connecting with different people and experiencing different places. In terms of challenges, I would say there are two main ones. First, because of Brexit, it took me a long time and a lot of paperwork to get a visa to come here. It’s challenging being constantly reminded that certain things aren’t as easy as they are for other Europeans. The other thing is the cultural and language barrier. I’m trying to learn Dutch but it’s very difficult. In the workplace everything is in English, but I think it’s nice to be able to speak to people in their language when you’re out and about. I’m from a small town in South Wales and didn’t study languages at school because I never thought I’d ever live abroad.

The main thing that I love about the Netherlands is it’s like living in the future! You can look outside and see everyone cycling by. Almost every vehicle is an electric vehicle. Every building I can see has solar panels on it. There are wind turbines in the distance and they also have a field in the middle of campus with sheep in it. It’s like this alternative utopian future land is already here, where everything just works. And that’s really nice. It feels almost like you’re always on vacation. I guess maybe that’s going to wear off. But it’s great so far!

Catrin’s Utrecht campus building, the sheep and tulip season

Do you have any other thoughts about CCS in general that you’d like to share – its present, its future, any concerns?

I think my main concern about CCS is the disparity in thinking between people who are working in CCS and people who aren’t. In the CCS community we’re having conversations about projects and about the technicalities of the research working, knowing that all scenarios from the IPCC that reach 1.5 degrees include CCS. You then talk to not only “the general public”, but also other researchers who are working in technical scientific disciplines but not CCS, and there’s so much distrust and confusion around CCS. The thing is, we’re doing it, and we’ve been doing it for decades.

A key issue is addressing misinformation, because I think it’s the pitfall of our time. When I did my internship with the UK government, misinformation fed into nearly all chronic risks I was looking at. I really want to reduce the misinformation around CCS, and also help people understand the nuances of this conversation. The nuance in reaching net zero is that, yes, mitigation should come first, but also we need to understand the role and reliance governments are placing on CCS – and how much it is predicted to be a part of our solution.