19.12.2008
”To study in Heidelberg is a good opportunity to get in contact with different cultures. It is really a nice city for internationally oriented people.”
Jorham enjoys life in Heidelberg
Copyright: Baden-Württemberg International
“Social life in Germany is very different from Venezuela. But I soon found out how to get in contact with the Germans – just get involved in a group! With common friends there are no limits for meeting other people”. Jorham, a 28-year old PhD student from Caracas likes parties and trips, sports and barbecues. “To be honest, at first you have to adjust but now I feel very much at home here. To study in Heidelberg is a good opportunity to get in contact with different cultures. It is a very nice city for internationally oriented people”, states Jorham of his experience.
With regard to his interesting work in the lab there is less of a cultural difference: “We might use other methods and tools, but the results are more or less the same, here and back home.” Jorham gets the data he needs for his project from an American company. His project is fully funded by third parties. The DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) paid for the German class, seminars and field trips. “It is a great opportunity for me to do my PhD here in Heidelberg, which I only knew from the famous scientific Springer-Publishing House before.”
Research in the geo- and environmental sciences in Heidelberg concentrates on the dynamic interactions of geofluids, gases and aerosols with solid and liquid phases of the earth system. Within these research areas, scientists in the fields of geology, petrology, environmental physics, environmental geochemistry and physical geography are involved. They are members of the Faculties of Earth Sciences, Physics and Astronomy, cooperating with colleagues from the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and of Max-Planck-Institute of Nuclear Physics. State-of-the-art analytical facilities are available in each of these areas. There is a wide range of research topics within the general frame of the International Postgraduate Program and the accompanying International Research Training Groups. The research characteristically consists of a combination of laboratory and computer-aided research and field work. For Jorham, the focus lies on modeling and simulation. His thesis “Basin analysis and numerical modeling of South Atlantic passive continental margins” also deals with seismic-stratigraphical interpretation, calibration well logs, numerical basin modeling and stratigraphic forward modeling, including subsidence rates, sea-level changes, basin geometry and depositional processes through time, in the southeast Brazilian and Uruguayan continental margins. Courses at various German universities provided him with the knowledge he needed to apply the software he uses in his project .
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