Function and Responsibilities:

Sam received his Ph.D. in Geophysics from the University of Adelaide in 2021 with a broad investigation into the physical nature of Earth's lower crust. His doctoral research encompassed both thermal and electrical characterization of the Earth via laboratory experimentation as well as large-scale magnetotelluric field campaigns. During his research, Sam was assigned the task of maintaining a fork of the Global Heat Flow Database and publishing it online in an interactive web application using a modern web framework. After finishing his PhD, Sam continued to pursue web development and database management from a research perspective with an interest in sharing his own learning experiences to guide other researchers doing the same.

In 2022, Sam took on a position with the Library and Information Services at GFZ where he now manages the official Global Heat Flow Database of the International Heat Flow Commission (IHFC). His role as part of the World Heat Flow Database Project sees him continue with his previous experiences in web development now with the support of an international community of heat flow researchers and practitioners. One of Sam's primary goals in joining the project was to demonstrate the capabilities of modern web frameworks when applied to research databases. He also hopes to develop reusable components so that others may follow in his footsteps and gain from his experience when developing their own research databases.

If you wish to follow along with his work, you can read more about it (or even contribute) on the Geoluminate github page.