Profile
Christian Maerz
My CV
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Education:
As I am from Southern Germany, I went to Primary School in my home village St. Ilgen, then attended secondary school in the neighbour village Sandhausen. I finished school in 1998, then studied Geology at Heidelberg University (beautiful town!) until my graduation in 2005. From 2005 to 2008, I did my PhD at Bremen University in Northern Germany.
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Work History:
After my PhD in Bremen, I moved to the nearby University of Oldenburg to work as a scientist (we call it “Postdoc”) for around 3 years. I then decided that I wanted to spend some time abroad and worked for 2 years at Newcastle University. Because my girlfriend and I liked the place, we decided to stay, and I was very lucky to get a permanent job as Lecturer in March 2013!
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Current Job:
I am a Lecturer in Geoscience.
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My Typical Day:
Get up at 6:30am, have breakfast, cycle to work, check emails, make coffee, various meetings with colleagues and students, maybe some teaching, maybe some lab work, have lunch check emails again, work on a publication, have another coffee, cycle home, have dinner, do some sports
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Read more
I guess for most parts, my job is not very different from most office jobs – which means I spend many hours per day in front of a computer. Not my favourite thing to do, but it is necessary to communicate with students and other scientists, especially as they are working at many places around the world so we communicate by email.
If I have new samples to work on, I spend a lot of time in my laboratory where I extract chemical elements out of dried mud from the sea floor. That’s much more fun than computer work, as it involves doing something with your hands, and it includes nasty and dangerous acids, so you have to work very focused.
In autum this year, I will start teaching students at Newcastle University, and for some months this will take a big amount of my time.
Meetings with students and colleagues at Newcastle are also really important to discuss the students’ research or new ideas for projects.
And, very important, I need a decent lunch! So usually I walk with a colleague to a sandwich shop, sometimes we even get some warm food, and we usually have it in a common room in our building.
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What I'd do with the prize money:
Donate it to the Hancock Great North Museum
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My Interview
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How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
Science-crazy sporty geologist.
Were you ever in trouble at school?
Well, we had a pretty mean bully in our class, and he frequently gave me a hard time…
Who is your favourite singer or band?
I like punk and ska bands from the 1990’s, like NOFX, Lagwagon, Goldfinger or Mad Caddies. If you don’t know them, you should check them out!
What's your favourite food?
I like barbecue a lot, but I am also a big fan of dumplings!
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
1: Continuing to live as happy and healthy as I am doing right now. 2: In a couple of years, I would like to have one or two well-behaved kids. 3: Better weather at Newcastle.
Tell us a joke.
I could tell you loads of German ones, but I’ll first have to think about something in English…
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