What do you do?
One of the things I do is to help Vets understand what the stones they remove from the bladders/kidneys/colons of cats/dogs/horses are made of.

Why should the general public be interested in what you do?
Most people have more pet animals than pet rocks.

Why does it interest you?
Stones which grow inside animals aren't much different than ones which grow inside the Earth. So I can use the same techniques for studying animal stones that geologists use for studying "Earth" stones. And the positive feedback I've gotten from veterinarians has been tremendous.

What major advances/discoveries have occurred in your research field over the last 10 years?
The biggest advance/discovery for me has been the realization that the things I do as a mineralogist/geologist can have a tremendous impact on a seemingly unrelated field of research - like Veterinary Medicine. Ten years ago I would never have believed that I'd be doing research on the mineralogy of horse enteroliths (colon stones).