Can you tell us a bit about what your role at Beam involves?
I am the Head of Geoscience for Beam’s site characterisation business unit, and my responsibilities can be broken down into two areas. Firstly, I provide technical support and guidance to our team of geophysicists who are involved in interpreting and reporting on the geophysical data acquired from our vessels. At the same time, I support Beam’s wider team with initial client engagement, attending conferences, and the supporting tendering team with proposals, ensuring we offer the most appropriate technical solution to our clients.
What is your career/educational background and how did it prepare you for working at Beam?
Even as a teenager, I knew I wanted to go into the offshore survey industry. After getting a distinction in a BTEC in Ocean Science at Falmouth Marine School, I went on to Bangor University in North Wales, where I studied for a BSc in Geological Oceanography.
I went straight from university into a role as a Graduate Geophysicist with a marine survey company called Thales Geosolutions, where I was involved with the interpretation of geophysical data.
I then spent several years with Fugro, working both on and offshore for the Abu Dhabi office, before heading to South-east Asia, where I spent six years working for Fugro in their Singapore office, again both on and offshore, and later joining EGS Indonesia as their Operations Geophysicist in their Jakarta office. The role of Operations Geophysicist required me to work offshore as a Party Chief, and onshore, interpreting, report writing and supervising geophysicists. I returned to the UK and rejoined Fugro in 2012 as a Geoscience Team Leader, in 2020 I was promoted to Geoscience Supervisor. In January 2023 I joined Beam in my current position.
I have worked all over the world, in some locations more exotic than others, but I have been able to take the different experiences from my previous roles into my current position at Beam.
What do you enjoy most about your job?
It might sound corny, but one of my favourite aspects is the people I work with. We are a growing company, made up of bright, motivated, and enthusiastic individuals who are all working towards the same goals.
Beam can be quite a fast moving, dynamic and varied place to work. One minute I am assisting a geophysicist, the next I am supporting the business development team on a technical call with a prospective client.
Do you have any advice for someone interested in working in geoscience/the marine survey sector?
I think that roles in the marine survey industry are extremely interesting and varied. If it’s something you think you could be interested in, I would strongly recommend pursuing. The way that the industry is heading now means that you don’t necessarily have to spend extended periods of time at sea, new technologies mean that there is a greater flexibility in how work is done.
Working in the survey industry is an opportunity to see parts of the world that a tourist wouldn’t normally see. Over my time in the industry, I have built up a global network of friends and colleagues.
You get to work with people from all walks of life, so a piece of advice that I would give is that you need to be someone who can get along with people from all cultures, backgrounds, and experience levels. You need to be able to work well in a team.
What do you see as the biggest challenges facing the industry today and how can Beam help address these?
Finding suitably qualified personnel is a tricky issue, there is a shortage of both trainees and experienced staff in all disciplines involved in marine site survey. I think one way to solve that issue is to look at the ways that technology can make certain aspects of our work more efficient so that less ‘people power’ is required for tasks that could be accomplished by machine learning and AI, for example. We wouldn’t want to remove humans completely from the equation, but there are areas where technology can be utilised to overcome resourcing issues and make our processes more efficient.
What changes have you seen in your time in the marine survey sector? And how do you think the industry will change in the next 5-10 years?
I am going to sound like a dinosaur here! When I first started working in the industry, a lot of the interpretation work we were doing was by hand on paper records and paper charts.
Over time, there has been a massive increase in the use of technology and computers in the acquisition and interpretation of data. We are now at an interesting time where we will come to see an even greater adoption of technology, through artificial intelligence and automation.
So, now we need think about how the industry will find its feet using these tools in the most appropriate manner to drive efficiencies whilst maintaining the human input at the right level.
Innes H
Onshore Geophysicist
“Beam is also a very people-focused company, we like to do a lot of social events, so it is nice to be able to interact with everyone socially and professionally. Specifically to my role, I enjoy working with a range of datasets, rather than just one thing all the time, it means there is plenty of variety in my work.”
Ellie H
Front End Software Engineer
Ellie, one of our Front End Software Engineers, who ensures our technology delivers seamless user experiences; supporting offshore teams and pushing the boundaries of autonomous systems.
Sean R
Geophysicist
With a background in geology and marine geoscience research, Sean was drawn to Beam for its innovative approach—particularly its integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in geophysical interpretation. AI is set to revolutionize the field by streamlining data analysis, allowing geophysicists to oversee AI-driven interpretations across multiple datasets.