The Journey to Arup
Less than a month into the PhD in October 2022, my supervisor (Dr Ulrich Ofterdinger) informed me about a symposium on Geothermal Energy in London- the “UK Geothermal Symposium” organised by the Energy Group of the Geological Society of London. As a new PhD student researching shallow geothermal energy, I took it as an opportunity to understand the geothermal energy market in the UK and to network. There were several presentations on geothermal energy projects and innovative prospecting methods. However, one of the presentations that caught my attention was the one given by Arup’s Eren Gunuc on “Deep Geothermal Energy”. I had a conversation with Eren about my intention of an internship in my second year (2024) at Arup. Eren connected me with the lead geothermal energy projects in the Arup Belfast office (Melanie Trush). I exchanged emails with Melanie, and in December 2023, I met Melanie. We discussed the opportunities at Arup and how my expertise will be valuable in some of their projects.
My Experience
I did my internship between July 1 2024, and September 30 2024 (part-time) at the Ground Engineering team of Arup Belfast Office. For three months, I worked and studied (two half-days at Arup and two half-days at the University); it was challenging, but I found it to be an opportunity to learn new things, especially in an environment that was unfamiliar to me. The first project I worked on was the £100m Belfast Stories– a proposed tourist destination hub in Belfast City Centre. I critically appraised the shallow geothermal energy proposal report for space heating and cooling at this site and recommended different geological and hydrogeological investigation requirements. Amongst many things I learnt from this project is the ability to achieve similar results while minimising expenses. As a doctoral researcher, I approached it from the angle of being detailed, which would take a longer time, I learnt other ways that would take a shorter time and achieve the same results.
I spent a significant amount of time at Arup working on a Preliminary Risk Assessment (PRA) Report for a multi-million-pound project. The PRA allowed me to gain experience using ArcGIS Pro for geospatial applications, which was quite different from QGIS I am familiar with. In addition, I was exposed to the different geoenvironmental databases in the UK. Also, I gained knowledge of geoenvironmental and geotechnical desk study, conceptual site models and ground investigation strategies. While on this project, I was in the field to investigate the impacts of rock orientation and size at the site. It solidified the knowledge of measuring strike and dip, which I last did in 2016 during my undergraduate studies.
During my time at Arup, I accompanied a field engineer on a site visit to the £340 million Belfast Grand Central Station during its construction. The field engineer explained the roles of someone with my expertise in constructing this large infrastructure, and I learnt the impacts of good ground investigation. Beyond the technical experience, one thing that also stood out was the working culture at Arup, including the friendliness, openness, team-building and flexibility in the work environment. Throughout my three months, I participated in weekly team briefings, which helped me understand some of the industry-specific language. Arup is very proactive in protecting the minorities within their organisation, and I was offered the opportunity to work from home during the anti-immigration protests. Lastly, although I don’t know what the future holds after completing my PhD, this experience has given me insight into working in the industry, and I am open to working at Arup and other firms.
