I'm Ali Dean, and I'm going to be the station
leader at Davis for the next season. I was the station leader at
Davis for the last summer and for the winter before that.
So prior to working at Davis, I was the station leader at Rothera
and at the 2 South Georgia research stations that the British have.
I first started working in the Antarctic as a geologist from then
sort of moved into operations and station management.
But stations are such a dynamic and sort of multifaceted place that,
you know, I could see that's where I wanted to be,
and that's where I wanted to work. When you're on station, you're
in a very tight knit community and taking a group of people that in
normal circumstances, probably wouldn't associate with each other.
And seeing them develop into a community on station is pretty
amazing. At Davis this season,
it's going to be incredibly busy. Initially,
we have the resupply. This season there's a lot of science going
on at Davis. There are projects that are on
station, so a lot of the atmospheric physics that's undertaken.
There is going to be a lot of marine biology happening on station.
We have a very well equipped laboratory.
There's a really interesting project that is looking at
changes in the oceans. So ocean acidification as climate
warms. There's going to be a Seal project which is looking at
Weddell seals and elephant seals. I don't think that you can explain
in words how you feel when you first get to the Antarctic,
because that excitement and that just sheer awe of the place is,
is just so hard to explain to people. And I really get a kick out of
all the new people that go down and that that actually keeps my
enthusiasm going, I think.