Kasey Williams, BEng

What’s the work that you do?

I work in environmental remediation, actively remediating legacy contamination at Antarctic stations whilst assisting in the development of new remediation technologies to improve the efficiency of clean up efforts in polar regions. I work on field and desktop based components of an ongoing Fuel Spill Remediation project in East Antarctica. My role is extremely varied – one day I am operating a water treatment system to remediate hydrocarbon impacted waters, the next I am flying drones to obtain high resolution imagery and data from our remediation sites and the next I am drilling tens of metres into the ice to determine the spatial distribution of a historical fuel spill underneath!

What keeps you going?

Being able to see the positive impacts of the work in front of my own eyes is a huge motivator. I love that the work our team does is extremely hands-on and practical and that our research provides guidance to other nations to learn and adopt our remediation strategies across the continent. These elements combined with the unique and extreme environment that we are privileged to live and work in and the incredible team I work with at the AAD continues to drive me to conduct high quality science.

What’s your message to the world?

Environmental remediation is not just about playing around in the dirt in Antarctica! It contributes to the restoration of our precious Antarctic environment, which is so important for our planet’s ability to regulate climate. Each day in the field we see the alarming impacts of climate change occurring in real time, and whilst our Fuel Spill Remediation work has had considerable impact on mitigating the risks of hydrocarbon contamination for marine and freshwater ecosystems at Casey Station, we need our entire planet to take steps to reduce our overall global environmental impact. We must all do our bit, no matter how big or small, to preserve Antarctica and subsequently the Earth as we know it.