After taking a career break, Luke Hepworth was unsure that he’d be able to find his way back into academia. Now, with funding from the Daphne Jackson Trust, Luke has a fellowship at Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences doing what he loves – studying the rocks of Rùm in Scotland.
What’s your research about?
I work on the kind of rocks that never erupted from volcanoes. The stuff that was just left to stew and solidify at depth, forming fossilized magma chambers.
I’m using the Isle of Rùm in Scotland as my study area. It’s a tiny, 13-kilometre-wide island, where the magmatic bodies are well-exposed and there are plenty of interesting geological features.
Currently, I’m looking at a particular part of Rùm that was horribly deformed, folded and faulted, whilst the magmatic body was still very hot – an unusual situation because hot rocks should be more ductile. What state was the magma in during the deformation – solid or soupy like wet sand? It’s questions like this that I’m trying to answer, going back to the fundamentals of what magma chambers look like, how magma cools and even how deformation works.
How did you discover earth science?
I never had an interest in rocks and fossils as a child. I discovered the subject by chance whilst at college, when my home-life was quite tumultuous. My Mum and I were involved in a car accident that left her disabled, meaning I had to start my A-levels over again.
It was a chaotic time, so I picked geology and geography because they didn’t require me to bring coursework home. I loved geology and I went on to study the subject at Uni, before going on to do a PhD.
I threw myself into my PhD – publishing four papers during that time, as well as travelling regularly to present at conferences and use scientific instruments. It was quite an intense period, and I basically burnt out completely.
After taking up a short research position, things caught up with me and I moved to my beloved Rùm, this time for a career break, to work in a B&B. During Covid, I moved back home to care for my Mum, who sadly passed away as restrictions were lifting.
It was one knock after another, and my confidence slipped – I just didn’t think I could get back to research again. I felt that my scientific skills had faded, and that anyone hiring would see me as too ‘high-risk’.
But a conversation with a lecturer-friend made me think it might be possible to return, and they encouraged me to give it a try.
How did you find out about the Daphne Jackson Trust?
By the time I reached out to Marian Holness (my supervisor at Cambridge), I’d spent about 7 years out of academia. I had an idea for a project and knew about the Daphne Jackson Trust having seen a fellow of theirs give a talk years ago.
I applied to the Daphne Jackson Trust for funding and found the process to be very supportive – they gave me extremely helpful feedback on how to boost my application and did much of the communication with the department.
Once I had secured my fellowship, I couldn’t wait to get stuck into research again. I hit the ground running – I attended a conference fairly early on in my fellowship and I was buzzing to be back doing what I love.
Photo of a thin section slice through one of the magmatic rocks. Credit: Luke Hepworth.
One of Luke's sketch-maps, showing the outcrops in plan view. Credit: Luke Hepworth.
Something that’s taken some adjusting to is being part time. Changing my work pattern has taken the pressure off, but it can be challenging because I feel that I am already playing catch-up with my peers. I manage my time carefully and reassure myself that the next task can always wait until tomorrow, and I’ve now grown to like the flexibility of it.
The change of pace, coupled with getting back into the field, has been beneficial for my mental health. When I go over to Rùm during the summer I can be away for months at a time. On one of my favourite trips, I spent hours every day blissfully sketching, logging and noting observations at each outcrop. It’s very methodical – you are completely engrossed and can lose yourself in the task. And when you finally bring all those fine details together in the form of a geological map, it’s immensely gratifying to see the bigger picture.