Kaitlin Schaible

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This transcript is based on a video-recorded interview deposited at MarE3, JAMSTEC (Yokosuka, Japan).

The transcripts of the research project Oral Histories of Scientific Ocean Drilling are polished representations of oral conversations, and are intended solely for the purpose of preserving and documenting personal accounts and memories. They are not a literary product, and are not intended to exhibit literary qualities.

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Interview of Kaitlin Schaible by Beatriz Martinez-Rius on 2024 September 13, D/V Chikyu (Japan). [link]

Beatriz Martinez-Rius (BMR): Today is September 14 of 2024. I’m Beatriz Martinez-Rius, postdoctoral researcher in JAMSTEC. I’m onboard Chikyu, Expedition 405 with Kaitlin. Please, tell me your name, affiliation, and current position.

Kaitlin Schaible (KS): I am Kaitlin Schaible. I am a PhD student at UT Austin (University of Texas) in the Geophysics Institute.

BMR: Where are you from, Kaitlin?

KS: I’m from Minnesota, originally. I grew up west of the Twin Cities.

BMR: What kind of family do you come from? Do you have siblings, any relation to sciences…?

KS: I have two younger sisters, so I’m the oldest of three. I grew up with my dad, so he was kind of in charge of us all, a handful of three girls. My family doesn’t really have anyone… Maybe a great uncle, that was a physicist but other than that… My dad was a carpenter. Then, my mom’s side of the family is like much more academic. So they were mostly librarians. My aunt, she got her PhD doing women’s and gender studies and she is a professor. So, that side of the family, I feel like it was academic. But on my dad’s side of the family, it’s much more like trade-type stuff.

BMR: What brought you to Earth Sciences?

KS: I didn’t know what I wanted to do so, when I applied to college, I went to a small liberal arts school, Carleton College, in Minnesota. There, they let you just try everything, because it’s liberal arts. So I tried a bunch of classes. I thought I was maybe going to do math, because I liked math in high school, and I took my first math class and it was like a total disaster (laughs). I had to go to office hours every single time, and I had no idea what was going on. So I was like, “Math isn’t for me”. After two years of trying a bunch of stuff, I took Intro to Geology and we were basically outside all the time. The professor was really excited and I was like, “This is really fun” and a good way to integrate math physics, but then also like be outside and be doing things that I was interested in, which was really nice. So I also was outside all the time when I was growing up, because we were on kind of a small like hobby farm. So we had horses, dogs, and stuff. So you’re outside all the time, and I feel like it was a nice way to integrate being outside and also learning about the Earth.

BMR: Many people has come into this field because they like being outside.

KS: Yeah (laughs).

BMR: It’s sort of a nice way to stay in the field, outdoors.

KS:Yeah, I feel like, it always seems simple. It’s like you’re doing stuff that you like already, so it makes work easier, when it’s something that you just enjoy already. Which is nice.

BMR: So what led you to a PhD?

KS: After I graduated, I got a job doing field engineering stuff. So I was doing civil engineering. I did that for a while, and I felt like it was similar, you did similar jobs, but in different locations. So you are kind of doing the same thing over and over again. And I felt I lost interest pretty quickly, and I felt that I wasn’t being like challenged at all. It was kind of just like, you take the same measurements either in the lab or in the field, and then you just send it off for someone else to interpret. So I quit that, and worked at a ski resort for a while, while I applied to grad school.

BMR: Where did you work at?

KS: At a ski resort.

BMR: Oh, a ski resort! (both laugh)

KS: Yeah, well, not relevant to my PhD, but I did that for a while, which was a nice break. And then I applied to grad school. So I knew I wanted to do something related to hazards and tectonic processes… And so, I reached out to a bunch of people and actually got lucky, because I was referred to Demian Safer, who’s my current advisor. I didn’t know him at first. And then I heard that, “Oh, Demian’s coming to U.T.” So I reached out, and this worked out really well. So I got lucky.

BMR: How did you get to know about scientific ocean drilling? What was your first contact with it?

KS: For my undergrad research, we did drilling with the USGS, Utah Water Science Center into Lake Powell. So they were looking at possible contamination into these sediment deltas that are building in the reservoirs it fills up. So they did a coring project on there. I knew that I was kind of interested in like, looking at geophysical logs and integrating that, with the cores that you actually recover. And then, my first interaction with ocean drilling was connected to Demian. So when I reached out asking about projects, one of the projects was working on data that has been collected as part of the NanTroSEIZE Project, and it sounded really interesting to me. So that’s how I first got started into it.

BMR: So basically from the beginning you were kind of pushed to Japan.

KS: Yeah, a little bit, yeah. It was kind of like, “here’s a first project you can work on, on this NanTroSEIZE stuff”. I feel that as soon as I started working on it, I just got more and more interested. So it’s been really cool, being able to come to Japan and actually meet a lot of the people whose papers I’ve been reading, that have been publishing on that stuff. Meeting people that have been working here for the last few decades has been really, really cool.

BMR: Yes, it’s actually very nice the see that this is a very close community.

KS: Yes.

BMR: You can see it here (onboard); senior researchers are very approachable…

KS: Yeah, yeah. It’s been really nice, meeting everybody, and I feel like everybody knows so much, like they’re all experts. And so, even just picking up pieces of that has really helped my research. Getting people’s perspective on what they’ve been looking at the Nankai stuff for years. So it’s been really helpful for me, to learn about the region, and also develop my own research.

BMR: Why did you apply to this J-Track expedition?

KS: I had been on previous – not IODP, but previous expeditions, and I really like being at sea. I feel like you learn so much in a condensed amount of time, and it gives you also an opportunity to collaborate with people really closely. So that part, I was really interested in, but also for my own research. I look at the state of stress from image logs. And so that was something that I did at Nankai and I’m interested in like applying as well as a Japan trench. So it was kind of an opportunity to like get data, but then also to, to like collaborate on new ideas and stuff. So yeah,

BMR: Right, I just recalled that this is not your first expedition!

KS: Yeah (laughs)

Flagging the just-retreived cores onboard D/V Chikyu during IODP Expedition 405 (left) and core handling training with Chikyu‘s curator (right) . Credit of both images: ©️Doriane Letexier / JAMSTEC / IODP

BMR: Tell me about your first experience offshore.

KS: The first one was, in graduate school, I got invited to go with Demian to Hikurangi (New Zealand subduction zone), where they were servicing the borehole observatory they have there. They have two observatories that they installed as part of an IODP expedition. It was two weeks where we were collecting all of the data, using an ROV to plug in and get the data, which was really cool. That’s actually where I met Patrick (Fulton) for the first time, which was funny because it was kind of like a collision of worlds. So Patrick was actually my advisor’s first PhD student. It’s funny how quickly you learn the intricate connections of everybody, and how small of a community it was. But yeah, I was on board for two weeks to help with that. Afterwards, last year I sailed on the Chikyu as well, which was really fun.

BMR: Chikyu is a nice place to be.

KS: Yeah.

BMR: It’s really impressive, how big it is, the size of operations…

KS: Yeah, it’s cool talking with people that have been on Chikyu for years and like, even the drillers and everything else have such a connection to not only the boat itself, but also the research that’s come out of it, too. So I feel like everybody it’s cool, everybody is working towards scientific goals, and being really excited. Because I feel that sometimes you talk to people and it’s kind of irrelevant, like what data they’re collecting. But I feel like, it’s cool that people are really excited about what we’re learning as a science party… Then, it trickle down to what people know on the boat, as the crew and everything else, which is I feel like really  special.

I know we have just start that there’s no new data coming in yet. But maybe we can ask already what is the thing, what is your impression of this expedition so far? What has impressed you the most?

Yeah, I feel like, one, everything’s gone super smoothly so far, which I feel like we’re super lucky. I feel like it’s fun because like every single time something goes successful, everybody gets super excited. So I feel  like energy and morale is really high right now, especially being able to get the sensors deployed in the old observatory, which is really exciting. I’m mostly excited just that I’m like here with a bunch of people that are top of their field experts and I will get to learn so much from them. So I’ve already had really interesting conversations with Marianne (Conin) and Hiroki (Sone) about stress, and all the stuff that they know.  So I feel like it’s really lucky and really special to be able to get to learn from people that have been doing this forever, and getting their knowledge, and being able to carry that forward.

BMR: Yes, that’s something that often come up when you talk to people related to scientific ocean drilling, that multiple generations of scientists and levels of expertise gather in the expedition and they’re all on the same level.

SK: Yeah, that’s nice too, that people are like, so excited to talk about their science, but also to help you to understand it. So it’s nice because sometimes I feel like I’m pretty insular. I work on my thing and then I have other people doing geochemistry or other stuff. But on the boat, people take the time to really explain the nitty gritty of how they get the results, and what it takes to work on their data… And then, be able to produce the results that are then published. Do it’s nice, because you can ask kind of silly questions on people’s papers where it’s like, “I don’t understand this,” and then they’re happy to discuss it with you, which you get very rare opportunities to actually do that. And here it’s condensed for multiple months, which is really fun.

BMR: So the tough question – where do you see yourself in ten years?

KS: I have no idea (laughs). Hopefully still doing research. I feel like the more I meet people and the scientific ocean drilling community, the more connections I make, the more excited I get about the science. I feel like I’m really lucky to have mentors and people that have come before me, that have put in a lot of work to make this program happen, but also… My advisor, Demian, obviously has done a ton of stuff related to ocean drilling, but then his students and post-docs – like Matt Ikari, he was one of his students. So, I get to meet all of those people, and they become like mentors; and then, also, are people that I can collaborate with and work with, which is really special. So I feel like there’s a lot of people that have put a lot of work into making it something where they keep producing scientists that are involved in projects like this. So I hope that I am. But yeah, you never know. I love studying subduction zones and hazards, and I really like this work. So hopefully it’s opportunities that I have in the future. We’ll see (laughs).

BMR: I’m sure, and we have just started. You can see it in the people in this expedition, there’s like some kind of enthusiasm that kind of binds together people, makes people keep belonging to the community…

KS: Yeah.

BMR: Especially because there might be a follow up to this expeditions. So is there something else you want to add? Any kind of story, impression, something that I have not asked…

KS: I think mostly just reiterating that I’m really excited to be here. I feel like this is a once in a lifetime opportunity, to be on Chikyu, and I’ve done it twice. So I already feel like super fortunate (laughs). I’m just really excited and feel very fortunate to be learning from so many people that have a lot of really incredible experiences doing this science. So, it’ll be a good few weeks and I’m looking forward to getting some data to work on (laughs).

BMR: It will arrive (laughs).

KS: Yeah, right (laughs), I know we’re going to be so busy.

BMR: Thank you very much.

KS: Thank you.