First of all, Bergen —always a wonderful city— becomes a true paradise when spared its famously frequent rain. In my experience, the sunshine noticeably lifted everyone's mood. I was fortunate to catch an absolutely beautiful week, filled with enthusiasm and activity.
The research groups I visited were incredibly welcoming, inviting me to join group meetings, morning coffee exchanges, and even a team social event. My closest collaborators there also study rock glaciers in the Andes, which created a valuable opportunity to exchange insights and challenges from both sides of the mountain range —I work in the Argentinean Andes, while they focus on the Chilean side. The broader group works on a fascinating range of topics, from paleoclimate and glacier modelling to ocean bed mapping. It's always rewarding to see how methods and challenges can overlap, even when research questions differ.
As a PhD student at the University of Bonn, it was also insightful to observe how a different university system functions. This comparison helped me reflect on the advantages and disadvantages of both systems.
In addition to gaining insight into teaching practices at the institution, I spent my stay working on interferometric synthetic-aperture radar (InSAR) coherence data. This satellite-based data reveals changes in the Earth's surface between acquisitions —a complex topic, put simply. When drafting my PhD exposé, I had intended to include this as part of my third work package. However, as work packages 1 and 2 grew more demanding, I'm now especially grateful for the “detour” into this field.
As this was a return visit through Erasmus+ Teaching Mobility, I was especially happy to reconnect with colleagues I had met on previous stays. Now approaching the final stretch of my PhD, I am even more thankful for this opportunity and look forward to seeing these colleagues again at future conferences —or wherever our paths may cross.
A big thank-you to Ben Robson, Associate Professor in Geomatics and Remote Sensing at the University of Bergen, for hosting me —none of this, including my previous visits, would have been possible without your support. Further, special thanks to Simone Giertz for organizing the funding and keeping us informed about these opportunities.
Of course, no stay in Bergen would be complete without a hike to one of its famous seven mountains—see photo attached!