This is my final issue as Editor of Geoscientist, your independent Fellowship magazine. On the 21 June I will be leaving, after 21 years in Burlington House.
With our long lead-time, like old soldiers, magazine editors tend to fade away; so although I shall have had a hand in both July and August issues, from next month your Editor will be Dr Amy Whitchurch, formerly Senior Editor at Nature Geoscience.
Image: Walker, 1946, by Ted Nield Sr. (1920-2013).
Amy took a BSc in Environmental Science at Lancaster University, including an exchange year at the University of Minnesota, and an MRes (Leeds) in volcano-seismology. Her PhD, from Imperial College London, focused on the sedimentary signature of hotspot evolution in Yellowstone. After completing a post-doc at Imperial, Amy joined Nature Geoscience in December 2009.
I can think of no greater parting accolade than that someone like Amy should now wish to be the Editor of the magazine I have been developing since 1997. (Nor, indeed, was she the only candidate of whom this would have been true.) I wish her every success in taking Geoscientist on to new heights, with renewed vigour.
I cannot embark upon this farewell without acknowledging the help I have received from all my colleagues in London and Bath - and St Albans, where the magazine is now produced - nor indeed, without thanking Editors-in-Chief Tony Harris and Peter Styles; the Editorial Board, and everyone who has ever contributed to Geoscientist during my term. The lifeblood of all magazines is reader interaction, especially when that magazine belongs to them.
I owe a particularly heartfelt thankyou to two people who have left us - the late Carol Liddle (1955-2009) and Nick Simpson (1956-2012). Carol was the first to apply design expertise to Geoscientist, and indeed to the Society; lovingly crafting every spread (not to mention annual reports, book covers, stationery, leaflets, posters, bookmarks – the list is almost endless).
Nick Simpson, founder and CEO of CenturyOne, rode to our rescue with his ebullient energy, drive, and the flair of his wonderful team, creating the design template that, with modifications, we are using today. Carol and Nick remain among us. They remain, of course, in the hearts of those who knew them; while for everyone else, they live on through their work. Si monumentum requiris, circumspice*.
Finally thank you, my alter egos Adler deWind, Dwain Eldred and Dawne Riddle, who as house bylines, have added their voices to the mix from time to time. Some cruciverbalists have noticed that they are all anagrams of each other. They are also anagrams of Edward Nield.
Apologies to everyone who has tried, in vain, to email them.
DR TED NIELD NUJ FGS, EDITOR
@TedNield @geoscientistmag
*If you seek a monument, gaze around. (Epitaph for Sir Christopher Wren, St Paul’s, London.)