Research Student Spotlight November: Joe Kelly

Our monthly spotlight on the work and lives of the next generation of water@leeds researchers.

November 2024: Joe Kelly

PhD title: Distributed thermal testing for hydrostratigraphic characterisation of shallow open-loop geothermal systems.

School: Civil Engineering

Supervisors: Professor Fleur Loveridge, Professor Simon Rees, Dr Adam Booth

Tell us a bit about yourself

I grew up in Marsden, West Yorkshire, so I’m a local-ish lad. I did a geology degree at Camborne School of Mines, before a few years doing various non-geoscience jobs. I returned to the geo world via a master’s in GeoEnergy at Edinburgh. I’d long been interested in geothermal energy and thanks to the energy transition, I could now study it at degree level. My dissertation became my first published paper, on numerical modelling of deep geothermal systems.

Why did you choose Leeds University?

I had moved back to Yorkshire and was looking for work in the geothermal industry when the perfect job came up, Research Assistant in Geosolutions at Leeds. Leeds had for years been on my radar as a world-leading centre of geoscience research, and this role was to work on an active geothermal project on the campus, which also allowed me to stay in the area where I have so many connections. After a few months in this position, I was offered PhD funding to continue my work on the campus geothermal project.

What is your research about? 

I work with fibre optic cables deployed in boreholes to measure temperature changes in the ground during thermal tests. The effect of advection from groundwater flow in the aquifer can be measured in the temperature profiles. My aim is to use this data to quantify flow rates and build a hydrostratigraphy that can inform open-loop geothermal system design, potentially providing valuable insight while saving costs compared to typical methods.

What did you wish you knew before starting a PhD? 

It’s good to get a clear idea of what the ultimate point of your project is from early on (i.e. your guiding aim), everything else will follow from there. Also, make sure to keep up the things you enjoy doing outside of your work. Finally, there’s a whole community of people alongside you that you can and should talk to, about your research but also anything else you’re struggling with.