Meet the Team: Kate Oakes | OWC Exeter
At OWC, our teams are constantly expanding into more locations, in expertise, and in sectors of influence. Our people are at the heart of what we do, and we invite you to get to know our team members so you can meet the energy behind change.
This week, we sit down with Kate Oakes, an Engineering Geoscientist, in our Exeter office!
Position: Engineering Geoscientist
Office: Exeter
Favourite Music: At the moment I’m enjoying Teddy Swims’ music when I don’t have to listen to Imogen Heap’s The Happy Song (if you know you know!)
Can you give us a glimpse into your day-to-day life at OWC?
I’ll turn on the laptop and open Outlook, Teams and Arc GIS Pro – I spend a large proportion of my time in GIS and working with spatial data. Deliverables always looks better with a map!
I’m part of the ground modelling team and so I work with a range of geotechnical, geophysical geological and geomorphological data to characterise sites onshore and offshore.
It’s so interesting using the data to ‘look’ at the seabed, it’s great when we get data detailed enough to identify features such as mega ripples, sand waves and wrecks.
What inspired you to join your profession?
I’ve always enjoyed being outside and looking at fossils, so from school age this led me to geology and earth sciences. The degrees I’ve chosen were purely out of interest and through following these interests I’ve found my perfect career. It’s satisfying working in renewables and knowing I’m contributing positively to a sustainable future. I’m proud to say I work in offshore wind.
Can you share with us something exciting you are currently working on?
I find geohazards particularly fascinating and I’m currently working on an offshore CCS project which is developing a pipeline in my home county, Yorkshire (aka God’s own county).
The problem is that mobile sediments will likely impact the pipeline throughout the design lifetime and so mitigation measures begin with identifying migrating mega ripples, sand waves and sandbanks along the route. Using detailed bathymetry, I’ve been mapping these sand waves and calculating the sand wave migration bearings. It’s really interesting comparing data back to 1994 and seeing how the seabed has changed over the last 30 years.
Looking ahead, what do you think is key to driving sustainability in your region?
Once the wind farm is developed, offshore wind is a very green way to generate electricity, however the industry is still reliant upon carbon-intensive materials to develop the wind farm and so I think this area prior to the development still needs our attention.
Besides work, what do you enjoy most working within the ABL Group?
To me, ABL Group is an agile group of companies with high ambitions, a strong organisation, and an exciting journey ahead.
The work environment is friendly and supportive and it’s good fun when we all get together in person, be it for the team building days (where we can giggle at our managers doing a challenge) or simply a pub lunch.