Kirsten Hodge

I am currently the Director of the Pacific Museum of Earth (PME), one of UBC's main outreach hubs. Located in the Earth and Ocean Sciences Main building, the PME provides an educational window into the wide variety of research conducted in the Department of Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences. My role as Director is to oversee how the museum engages, excites, and educates the UBC community as well as local youth and teachers. Our work at the PME provides a link between the fundamental science that shapes our planet ("how science works in general") to topics that have environmental, economic, and societal importance ("why do we care?").

Since we as a community are linked to both the good & bad advances in science, it is critical to understand the basics of how our planet works. This knowledge will help us interpret and evaluate, for example, the media's coverage of current scientific events.  As scientists, we are storytellers armed with the knowledge of how and why stuff works. It's my commitment as Director of the PME to leverage this skill and create a fun and engaging space (both physical & virtual) where UBC's top Earth and planetary science scholars can disseminate their expertise. 

My science background: I am trained as a volcanologist and science educator. My past research used experimental fluid dynamics to understand how magma moves and mixes below volcanoes. I used lab experiments to answer questions arising from detailed field observations (e.g. testing models for magmatic enclave formation) and to understand the fundamental physics of the transport of material into, within, and out of magma reservoirs. The goal of this work was to unravel the dynamic processes that occur below volcanoes prior to eruption and understand how plutonic rocks exposed at Earth’s surface preserve these time-dependent processes. The overarching goal of this research was to better understand how magma reservoirs grow, differentiate, and ultimately erupt at Earth’s surface. The works contributes to our understanding of fundamental geologic processes such as continental crust formation, magma chamber growth, and volcanic eruption triggers.

If you are a current UBC student (graduate or undergraduate) with an interest in museum studies, geoscience education, and/or public science outreach please get in touch with me for current museum volunteer positions: .