Conor Murphy, Year 3 PhD
My STOR-i PhD (partnered with Shell) has two main focusses: the development of methodology for the characterisation of extreme events to aid the accurate forecasting of future hazards in a wide variety of contexts; and improvement of current statistical models for the assessment of induced seismic hazards for the specific application of the Groningen gas field in the Netherlands. //
I recently undertook a 4-month internship with my industry partner, Shell. The research focussed on the calibration of medium-range forecasts of environmental time series for use in decision-making regarding the safety of offshore structures. Among other things, it involved data cleaning, and learning Python through data exploration and statistical analysis of environmental datasets. Gaining real-world experience of working as a researcher in industry has been both enlightening and invaluable. The area of research was completely different to that of my PhD which enabled me to expand my knowledge in statistics and gain new skills, and in addition to the goals of the project, I was allowed to explore the aspects of the research which I found to be the most intriguing. //
I was also lucky enough to interact with a lot of new people working in a range of different roles during my internship, and feel I have extended my network greatly, learned much more about a range of different industry-based roles, and gained valuable insights for the future. As I near the end of my PhD, I’m very grateful to have had the opportunity to gain these additional skills and new experiences. I see them as very useful as I take the first steps in the search for my future career.