A Day in the Life of an X-ray Scientist
Talitha Santini
When I’m not zapping things with X-rays, I enjoy hiking, cooking, surfing, cycling…and having dishevelled hair.
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NAME: Talitha Santini
CURRENT TITLE: Senior Lecturer ORGANISATION: The University of Queensland AREA OF EXPERTISE: Soil science, geomicrobiology, land rehabilitation, environmental mineralogy. YEARS OF EXPERIENCE: 8 EDUCATION: BA/BSc (Env. Sc.); PhD (Soil Science), both University of Western Australia WEBSITE/TWITTER: Staff Profile |
One of the field sites from the Appalachian Mountains trip – I am on the right in our soil pit in Tennessee, with collaborator Dr Ashlee Dere (University of Nebraska-Omaha) on the left.
What does your job involve? What’s a typical day like?
It depends on the day! I enjoy that no two days are the same, and any given day can involve field, lab, or office work, and a combination of research and teaching. My last couple of weeks involved a week of field work in the Appalachian Mountains in the US, attending and presenting at a microbial ecology conference in Canada, completing lab work for a few different projects, reporting to industry partners on an ongoing project, mentoring my research students, and teaching one of my courses in Environmental Management. I love what I do, and I would probably still do the same job if I won the lottery (although I might use some of the winnings to pay someone else to do my admin…).
My research projects focus on the interactions between abiotic and biotic aspects of soil formation, landscape and ecosystem development, and biogeochemical cycles in both natural and engineered systems, spanning timescales of decades to millennia, to understand the responses of earth surface systems to global environmental change and human-imposed perturbations such as agriculture and mining. X-ray analytical techniques are essential to my research as they enable the identification and quantification of minerals and elements present in soil and sediment samples, and the speciation of various elements in these samples.
What do you love about working with X-rays?
X-ray methods allow us to see into the structure of minerals that are invisible to the naked eye. I love the conceptual simplicity of X-ray diffraction as a characterisation technique, and that you can extract so much information about the fundamental properties of a mineral or mixture of minerals from a single X-ray diffraction pattern.
What’s challenging?
The complexity of natural samples – soil is an incredibly heterogeneous material from a mineralogical viewpoint, but also geochemically, physically, and biologically. The sheer number of minerals that can be present in a single soil sample, plus the wide scope for substitution of cations and anions in crystal structures makes quantification of mineral concentrations tricky. Biologically precipitated minerals also present some interesting challenges around crystallinity and substitutions. Anything redox-sensitive, particularly minerals in sediments and aquatic environments, throws in some technical and practical challenges for analysis – trying to get a high quality diffraction pattern whilst maintaining an inert atmosphere or working with a wet sample requires a bit of tinkering. I’m lucky to work with some very talented people in the AXAA community and overseas who continue to push the techniques for analysis quantification forward – this is critical for being able to understand processes of soil formation, mineral dissolution and precipitation, and to accurately model these processes under land use and climate change scenarios.
Any advice to people looking for a career in X-ray (or neutron) analysis?
Make use of the AXAA community! I have always been encouraged by how inclusive the X-ray community in Australia is, and I’ve always been able to find someone willing to help with applying new methods to my weird and wonderful soil samples, no matter how many challenges they present. There’s a number of excellent opportunities to train through formal programs like the Cheiron School and workshops run by the Australian Synchrotron, ANSTO, and CSIRO – you’ll not only learn a lot from these, but you’ll also make friends across various disciplines that will become your collaborators and peers in future years.
Why is it good to be involved with AXAA?
AXAA has always been an organisation supportive of its junior members and interested in fostering young talent. I received a student bursary to the 2012 AXAA conference and this was instrumental in drawing me in to the X-ray community and building my professional networks. The X-ray community in Australia is very open to working with people new to X-ray methods and it is wonderful to see this collaborative spirit across the diversity of disciplines (engineering, medicine, materials science, environmental science, to name a few) represented within AXAA.
It depends on the day! I enjoy that no two days are the same, and any given day can involve field, lab, or office work, and a combination of research and teaching. My last couple of weeks involved a week of field work in the Appalachian Mountains in the US, attending and presenting at a microbial ecology conference in Canada, completing lab work for a few different projects, reporting to industry partners on an ongoing project, mentoring my research students, and teaching one of my courses in Environmental Management. I love what I do, and I would probably still do the same job if I won the lottery (although I might use some of the winnings to pay someone else to do my admin…).
My research projects focus on the interactions between abiotic and biotic aspects of soil formation, landscape and ecosystem development, and biogeochemical cycles in both natural and engineered systems, spanning timescales of decades to millennia, to understand the responses of earth surface systems to global environmental change and human-imposed perturbations such as agriculture and mining. X-ray analytical techniques are essential to my research as they enable the identification and quantification of minerals and elements present in soil and sediment samples, and the speciation of various elements in these samples.
What do you love about working with X-rays?
X-ray methods allow us to see into the structure of minerals that are invisible to the naked eye. I love the conceptual simplicity of X-ray diffraction as a characterisation technique, and that you can extract so much information about the fundamental properties of a mineral or mixture of minerals from a single X-ray diffraction pattern.
What’s challenging?
The complexity of natural samples – soil is an incredibly heterogeneous material from a mineralogical viewpoint, but also geochemically, physically, and biologically. The sheer number of minerals that can be present in a single soil sample, plus the wide scope for substitution of cations and anions in crystal structures makes quantification of mineral concentrations tricky. Biologically precipitated minerals also present some interesting challenges around crystallinity and substitutions. Anything redox-sensitive, particularly minerals in sediments and aquatic environments, throws in some technical and practical challenges for analysis – trying to get a high quality diffraction pattern whilst maintaining an inert atmosphere or working with a wet sample requires a bit of tinkering. I’m lucky to work with some very talented people in the AXAA community and overseas who continue to push the techniques for analysis quantification forward – this is critical for being able to understand processes of soil formation, mineral dissolution and precipitation, and to accurately model these processes under land use and climate change scenarios.
Any advice to people looking for a career in X-ray (or neutron) analysis?
Make use of the AXAA community! I have always been encouraged by how inclusive the X-ray community in Australia is, and I’ve always been able to find someone willing to help with applying new methods to my weird and wonderful soil samples, no matter how many challenges they present. There’s a number of excellent opportunities to train through formal programs like the Cheiron School and workshops run by the Australian Synchrotron, ANSTO, and CSIRO – you’ll not only learn a lot from these, but you’ll also make friends across various disciplines that will become your collaborators and peers in future years.
Why is it good to be involved with AXAA?
AXAA has always been an organisation supportive of its junior members and interested in fostering young talent. I received a student bursary to the 2012 AXAA conference and this was instrumental in drawing me in to the X-ray community and building my professional networks. The X-ray community in Australia is very open to working with people new to X-ray methods and it is wonderful to see this collaborative spirit across the diversity of disciplines (engineering, medicine, materials science, environmental science, to name a few) represented within AXAA.