Month: July 2025

Internship – Beth Hinnigan

Published on by Gillian

In April 2025 Beth Hinnigan joined the laboratory for a 5-month internship as part of the Teesside University graduate internship scheme to work as a soil scientist. As an Environmental Science graduate this opportunity will help her to gain valuable laboratory work experience to add to her CV such as using pXRF and NIR analysis of soil samples.

“My responsibilities involve preparing, testing and analysing the results from all the soil samples that I receive from a Roman Archaeological excavation site called Magna at Vindolanda near Hadrians wall in Northumberland. All the fresh soil samples that arrive needs to be dried in an oven to remove the water content and then ground in a mortar and pestle to create a fine powder. This step of soil preparation is essential for the machines to produce accurate data. The samples are then tested using a pXRF machine which uses X-rays to identify the elemental composition of the samples and NIR machine to show the wavelength of each element. I can then analyse this data to calculate the percentage of each element that makes up each sample. Finally, I produce a map showing any hotspots at the site where elements are concentrated and this could help identify how different areas of the land were used.

During this internship I have learnt about new analytical techniques and taken responsibility managing samples and data. It has been a great experience to collaborate with other staff and play an active role in this ongoing project”.

Internship – Ali Hoekstra

Published on by Gillian

During spring, I had the opportunity to do a 10 week research assistant internship at Teesside University. The experience has been both challenging and rewarding, offering a real-world glimpse into the kind of work I would like to pursue with my Forensic Science degree.

My main focus was a research project investigating ancient Roman leather scraps recovered from the Vindolanda archaeological site, which involved the use of a variety of advanced analytical tools. I worked with equipment such as Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Visual Spectral Comparitor (VSC) as well as a SpecimIQ Hyperspectral Camera. Through this I developed skills in analytical techniques and even created my own protocols for certain parts of the project.

The SEM can be used to see things that are very very small and there is a whole world that you would not expect to see when you are looking so closely.

Zooming into the archaeological leather samples there is a landscape of texture and contours. Deep caverns open up and suddenly what with the naked eye was just a pattern, is a network of pores and skin creases. In the pores you find a collection of debris, presumably from where the samples had been buried,but move in closer and you might find evidence of single celled creatures with a silica cell wall – diatoms.

In the modern leather samples occasionally the roots of hairs were still in place even after going through the tanning processes. In some cases entire networks of mould had started to appear.

One of the biggest challenges was working independently and learning to troubleshoot issues on my own. This pushed me to become more self-reliant and confident in the lab. I also gained a clearer understanding of how scientific research works day-to-day, which has helped shape my thinking about future career paths.

I’m incredibly grateful to my supervisor and the lab technicians for their guidance and support throughout the internship. Their mentorship made a big difference and contributed greatly to what I took away from the experience.