LIHUE — Two important parts of academia are collaboration and the ability to get up in front of people and project confidence, according to Dr. Lars Hansen.
And he owes his ability to do both to his days at Island School, in particular his involvement in the school’s drama department.
“That actually has paid off greatly,” he said.
On Jan. 1, the 31-year-old former Island School student will board a plane for Oxford, England. But it isn’t to perform in a theatrical production.
Hansen recently accepted a position at the University of Oxford, where he will join the university’s Earth Sciences Department as a lecturer in mineralogy and petrology.
His task there — create something that currently does not exist.
The new appointment involves establishing a research lab, the Rock Rheology Lab, to study how rocks deform at the atomic scale and what impact deformation has on the mantle’s flow and on tectonic plates, according to a release.
“To put it simply, we squish rocks … to simulate what is happening very deep in the earth,” he said.
Hansen, along with his wife Elissa and their two young children, leave for England Jan. 1.
“The pressure is mounting,” he deadpanned.
With a Ph.D. in Geophysics from the University of Minnesota, Hansen recently finished a yearlong postdoctoral research position at Stanford University, where he studied the Earth’s mantle and crust.
His research has allowed him to collaborate with geologists and physicists from around the world, and he has been invited to speak at scientific meetings throughout the U.S. and Europe regarding his published papers, according to the release.
After finishing his postdoctoral research at Stanford, Hansen began applying for teaching positions. All of them were in the U.S. — except Oxford.
“I actually wasn’t going to apply,” he said of Oxford. “I thought it was a long shot.”
Of the nearly 20 universities to which he applied, Oxford responded first. Within a few weeks, the university flew him over for an interview. And before he heard back from any of the other universities, Oxford offered him the job.
“I jumped on the opportunity,” he said.
The job is a research-heavy position and includes advising and working with undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral students.
Although he admits he has felt a certain amount of intimidation and self-doubt, he is excited about the job and the responsibility that comes with it. Luckily, he said he had “a lot of good mentors along the way,” including those at Island School.
As for his former island home of Kauai, it’s where Hansen said he discovered his love for the outdoors — playing in rivers, running around in cow pastures and hanging out at the beach.
Last Christmas he returned to Kauai, and even made time to visit Island School.
“It was a good chance for my wife’s family to get a sense of what that part of my life was like,” he said.
Although the Hansen family will soon be more than 7,000 miles away, he is not ruling out another return visit to the island he once called home.
“I’d love to come back at some point,” he said.
Earlier this month, Hansen presented his research at two sessions of the annual American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco, which attracts more than 25,000 scientists from universities, governments and private sectors worldwide, according to a release.
Joining Hansen in Oxford will be his two sons, 3-year-old Torsten and 2-month-old Col, and his wife, Dr. Elissa Hansen, who is currently associated with Oxford University Press, the largest university press in the world.
Hansen is the son of Norm and Charmaine Hansen, formerly of Poipu. He is a member of the Island School Class of 2000.
