Best Isabelle Searle Podcasts (2025)

1
Renée Tamblyn on the Origin of Continents 25:53

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5d ago25:53

25:53

When the Earth formed, it was covered by a hot magma ocean. So when and how did thick, silica-rich continental lithosphere form? Were the first, ancient continents similar to the present-day continents? And did the continents form in a burst of activity at a certain point, or was it a gradual build-up over Earth history? In the podcast, Renée Tambl…

1
Angela Halliday, Sodexo 45:30

1M ago45:30

45:30

In this episode, Sarah speaks to Angela Halliday, Director of Social Impact at Sodexo, who plays a key role in guiding Sodexo’s approach to social value. Rather than delivering social impact directly, Angela acts as an internal consultant - educating, enabling, and empowering Sodexo’s workforce to drive change. Listen in to find out about why embed…

1
Folarin Kolawole on Continental Rifting 29:44

1M ago29:44

29:44

From East Africa to southwest USA, many regions of the Earth’s continental lithosphere are rifting. We see evidence of past rifting along the passive margins of continents that were once contiguous but are now separated by wide oceans. How does something as apparently solid and durable as a continent break apart? In the podcast, Folarin Kolawole de…

1
Mike Hudec on Salt Tectonics 24:50

2M ago24:50

24:50

Most of Earth’s salt is dissolved in the oceans. But there is also a significant amount of solid salt among continental rocks. And because of their mechanical properties, salt formations can have a dramatic effect on the structure and evolution of the rocks that surround them. This gives rise to what we call salt tectonics – at first sight, a rathe…

1
Angela Benson & Sarah Hinchliffe , Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP) 27:16

2M ago27:16

27:16

In this episode of Let's Talk Social Value, Sarah interviews Angela Benson and Sarah Hinchliffe from the Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP). Sarah Hinchliffe, founder and Chair of the APMP UK Social Value Working Group, and Angela Benson, a board member and global head of bid management, share their insights into how bid profes…

1
Vic Baker on Megafloods 32:57

3M ago32:57

32:57

Megafloods are cataclysmic floods that are qualitatively different from weather-related floods. In the podcast, Vic Baker explains our ideas as to what causes megafloods and describes the striking evidence for such floods in the Channeled Scablands of Washington State and in the Mediterranean.Vic Baker has been studying megafloods for over 50 years…

1
Catherine Manning, Impact Reporting 40:50

3M ago40:50

40:50

In this episode of Let's Talk Social Value, Sarah interviews Catherine Manning, Head of Impact Practice at Impact Reporting and the Programme Director and driving force behind the social valuation tool, MeasureUp. They explore how social value measurement is evolving to focus on real impact rather than just compliance; the opportunities this provid…

1
Lindy Elkins-Tanton on the Origin of Earth's Water 20:30

3M ago20:30

20:30

The planets formed out of a cloud of gas and dust around the nascent Sun. Within the so-called snow line, it was too hot for liquid water to exist. Since the Earth lies well within this line, why does it have water? Did it somehow manage to retain water from the outset or did it acquire its water later? In the podcast, Lindy Elkins-Tanton explains …

1
Joeri Witteveen on Golden Spikes 25:21

4M ago25:21

25:21

Golden spikes are not golden, nor are they generally spikes. So what are they, and, more importantly, what exactly do they represent? In the podcast, Joeri Witteveen explains how we arrived at our present system of defining the boundaries of stages in the rock record with a single marker. Paradoxically, it turns out that the best place for a golden…

1
Isabel Montañez on Using the Late Paleozoic Ice Age as an Analog for Present Day Climate 29:46

4M ago29:46

29:46

The late Paleozoic ice age began in the Late Devonian and ended in the Late Permian, occurring from 360 to 255 million years ago. It was similar to the present day in two key respects: rising atmospheric CO2 and recurrent major ice sheets. In the podcast, Isabel Montañez explains how we can use proxies to learn about the climate and ocean condition…

1
Ruth Siddall on Urban Geology 33:53

5M ago33:53

33:53

At first sight, urban geology sounds like an oxymoron. How can you do geology with no rocky outcrops anywhere in sight within the built-up environments of cities? It turns out you can do a great deal of geology, and Ruth Siddall has been doing just that for the past 10 years. In the podcast, she describes some of the many aspects of geology, from p…

1
Lindsay Maguire, Cabinet Office 31:07

5M ago31:07

31:07

In this episode of Let's Talk Social Value, Sarah interviews Lindsay Maguire, Deputy Director for Procurement Reform at the Cabinet Office. They discuss how the new Procurement Act is reshaping government contracts; the opportunities that provides to prioritise social value, the flexibility of new procurement legislation, and how aligning procureme…

1
Holly Onstenk, Young Professionals In Social Value Network 18:43

5M ago18:43

18:43

In this episode, Sarah sits down with Holly Onstenk, Vice Chair of the Young Professionals in Social Value Network to hear about how the YPSV started, and has now evolved into a community with 500 members working social value. Sarah and Holly discuss the challenges of breaking into the social value industry, addressing the lack of training, qualifi…

1
Richard Fortey on Deep Time 29:48

6M ago29:48

29:48

The Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. How can we begin to grasp what this vast period of time really means, given that it is so far beyond the time scale of a human life, indeed of human civilization? Richard Fortey has devoted his long and prolific research career at the Natural History Museum in London to the study of fossils, especially the …

1
Mike Searle on the Mountain Ranges of Central Asia 34:31

7M ago34:31

34:31

The Himalaya are just one, albeit the longest and highest, of several mountain ranges between India and Central Asia. By world standards, these are massive ranges with some of the highest peaks on the planet. The Karakoram boasts four of the world’s fourteen 8,000-meter peaks, and the Hindu Kush, the Pamir, the Kunlun Shan, and the Tien Shan each h…

1
Andrew O'Brien & Hana Kapetanovic, Demos 48:32

7M ago48:32

48:32

In this episode, Sarah talks to Andrew O'Brien & Hana Kapetanovic from Demos, one of the UK’s leading think tanks, to explore their ground breaking report, Taming the Wild West: How Technology Can Charter a New Frontier for Social Value. In this interview, Andrew and Hana share their insights about the evolving role of technology in shaping the soc…

1
Rob Strachan on the Caledonian Orogeny 39:26

7M ago39:26

39:26

The Caledonian orogeny is one of the most recent extinct mountain-building events. It took place in several phases during the three-way collision of continental blocks called Laurentia, Baltica, and Avalonia during the early stages of the assembly of the supercontinent Pangea. In the process, Himalayan-scale mountains were formed. While these mount…

1
Isabelle Parasram OBE, The Institute for Social Value 34:28

8M ago34:28

34:28

In this latest episode, Sarah had the pleasure of hosting Isabelle Parasram, CEO of The Institute for Social Value. Isabelle speaks about the launch of The Institute for Social Value (previously Social Value UK) and its aims moving forward - supporting companies to tackle social value washing will be one of the areas of focus for its work. Isabelle…

1
Joe MacGregor on Mapping the Geology of Greenland Below the Ice 31:10

8M ago31:10

31:10

With most of Greenland buried by kilometers of ice, obtaining direct information about its geology is challenging. But we can learn a lot from measurements of the island’s geophysical properties — seismic, gravity, magnetic from airborne and satellite surveys and from its topography, which we can see relatively well through the ice using radar. In …

1
Lindsay Maguire Cabinet Office (NPPS clip) 2:21

8M ago2:21

2:21

We've recently been lucky enough to have a conversation with Lindsay Maguire, Deputy Director for Procurement Reform Implementation at the Cabinet Office, and can give you a sneak peak of next month's podcast episode right here! Lindsay reminded us that the Cabinet Office currently have a short stakeholder survey open, which will help inform develo…

1
Adam Simon on Battery Metals 34:14

9M ago34:14

34:14

As we wean ourselves away from fossil fuels and ramp up our reliance on alternatives, batteries become ever more important for two main reasons. First, we need grid-scale batteries to store excess electricity from time-varying sources such as wind and solar. Second, we use them to power electric vehicles, which we are now producing at the rate of a…

1
Rufus Catchings on Pinning Down California's Faults 33:33

10M ago33:33

33:33

Knowing exactly where faults are located is important both for scientific reasons and for assessing how much damage a fault could inflict if it ruptured and caused an earthquake. In the podcast, Rufus Catchings describes how we can use natural and artificial sources of seismic waves to create high-resolution images of fault profiles. He also explai…

1
Sara Seager on Exoplanet Geology 34:33

10M ago34:33

34:33

During the past couple of decades, we have discovered that stars with planetary systems are not rare, exceptional cases, as we once assumed, but actually quite commonplace. However, because exoplanets are like fireflies next to blinding searchlights, they are incredibly difficult to study. Yet, as Sara Seager explains, we are making astonishing pro…

1
Lorraine Cox - STAR Procurement & National Social Value Taskforce 37:04

10M ago37:04

37:04

Listen in as Sarah talks to Lorraine Cox, Director of STAR Procurement and Chair of the National Social Value Taskforce. Lorraine talks about the importance a social value offering plays when bidding on a public sector tender, and the ways in which the upcoming Procurement Act will change the tendering process. We hope you enjoy this episode. If yo…

1
Evan Smith on Diamonds from the Deep Mantle 34:36

11M ago34:36

34:36

We have only a tantalizingly small number of sources of information about the Earth’s deep mantle. One of these comes from the rare diamonds that form at depths of about 650 km and make their way up to the base of the lithosphere, and then later to the surface via rare volcanic eruptions of kimberlite magma. In the podcast, Evan Smith talks about a…

1
Roberta Rudnick on the Continental Crustal Composition Paradox 27:53

11M ago27:53

27:53

Continental crust is derived from magmas that come from the mantle. So, naively, one might expect it to mirror the composition of the mantle. But our measurements indicate that it does not. Continental crust contains significantly more silica and less magnesium and iron than the mantle. How can we be sure this discrepancy is real, and what do we th…

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Alex Copley on Soft Continents 32:04

12M ago32:04

32:04

We tend to think of continental tectonic plates as rigid caps that float on the asthenospheric mantle, much like oceanic plates. But while some continental regions have the most rigid rocks on the planet, wide swathes of the continents are not rigid at all. In the podcast, Alex Copley explains how this differentiation comes about and points to evid…

1
Rachel Searle - Foundation Scotland 1:00:46

1y ago1:00:46

1:00:46

Join Sarah in this episode as she talks to Rachel Searle, from Foundation Scotland, about community benefits. Discover what they are, how they are administered, who has the power to make the decisions, and the significant positive impact they can have on a local community. We hope you enjoy this episode. If you have a topic you'd like us to discuss…

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Shanan Peters on Quantifying the Global Sedimentary Rock Record 27:14

1y ago27:14

27:14

Shanan Peters believes we need to assemble a global record of sedimentary rock coverage over geological time. As he explains in the podcast, such a record enables us to disentangle real changes in the long-term evolution of the Earth-life system from biases introduced by the unevenness and incompleteness of the sedimentary record. To this end, he a…

1
Paul Smith on the Cambrian Explosion 32:44

1y ago32:44

32:44

Complex life did not start in the Cambrian - it was there in the Ediacaran, the period that preceded the Cambrian. And the physical and chemical environment that prevailed in the early to middle Cambrian may well have arisen at earlier times in Earth history. So what exactly was the Cambrian explosion? And what made it happen when it did, between 5…

1
Alastair Clay - NHS North of England Commercial Procurement Collaborative 37:10

1y ago37:10

37:10

Listen in as Sarah dives deep into the world of NHS procurement with Alastair Clay, Sustainable and Social Value Manager at the NHS North of England Commercial Procurement Collaborative. Together they discuss how to approach social value in your tenders to create maximum impact, what the NOE CPC is looking for from suppliers in terms of social valu…

1
Scott Bolton on the Most Volcanically Active Body in the Solar System 24:45

1y ago24:45

24:45

Jupiter's innermost Galilean moon, Io, is peppered with volcanos that are erupting almost all the time. In this episode, Scott Bolton, Principal Investigator of NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter, describes what we're learning from this space probe. Since its arrival in 2017, its orbit around the giant planet has progressively shifted to take it close …

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Bob White on How Magma Moves in the Crust 36:45

1y ago36:45

36:45

We know that most magma originates in the Earth’s mantle. As it pushes up through the many kilometers of lithosphere to the surface, it pauses in one or more magma chambers or partially melted mush zones for periods of up to a few millennia before erupting. But while we have seismic evidence and models and support this picture, we have not hitherto…

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Steve Hill - Auticon 21:08

1y ago21:08

21:08

In this latest episode, Sarah talks to Steve Hill, Commercial Director of Auticon UK, a global IT consultancy and social enterprise whose mission is to improve the employment prospects of neurodivergent people. We’ll hear about the additional value that employees with autism can bring to the table, especially in sectors such as IT, as well as heari…

1
Richard Ernst on Large Igneous Provinces 31:56

1y ago31:56

31:56

At roughly 15-25-million-year intervals since the Archean, huge volumes of lava have spewed onto the Earth’s surface. These form the large igneous provinces, which are called flood basalts when they occur on continents. As Richard Ernst explains in the podcast, the eruption of a large igneous province can initiate the rifting of continents, disrupt…

1
Nicola Lynch - Independent Social Value Consultant & Impact Management Specialist 38:57

1+ y ago38:57

38:57

In this episode, Sarah interviews Nicola Lynch, a Level Three Advanced Practitioner in Social Value. Nicola is a Social Impact and Evaluation specialist and is one of only a handful of accredited Social Value & SROI trainers in the UK. We’re going to take you on a journey that will really make you think about your own understanding of social value,…

1
Rachel Stancliffe - Centre for Sustainable Healthcare 31:41

1+ y ago31:41

31:41

In this episode, Sarah interviews Rachel Stancliffe, CEO of the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare. Listen in as we dive into sustainable healthcare with Rachel Stancliffe, CEO of the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare. With a significant portion of healthcare’s carbon footprint stemming from within the procurement chain, Rachel guides us through the…

1
Damian Nance on What Drives the Supercontinent Cycle 35:58

1+ y ago35:58

35:58

Perhaps as many as five times over the course of Earth history, most of the continents gathered together to form a supercontinent. The supercontinents lasted on the order of a hundred million years before breaking apart and dispersing the continents. For decades, we theorized that this cycle of amalgamation and breakup was caused by near-surface te…

1
David Kohlstedt on Simulating the Mantle in the Lab 32:00

1+ y ago32:00

32:00

The Earth’s tectonic plates float on top of the ductile portion of the Earth’s mantle called the asthenosphere. The properties of the asthenosphere, in particular its viscosity, are thought to play a key role in determining how plates move, subduct, and how melt is produced and accumulates. We would like to know what the viscosity of the the asthen…

1
Sadie Besley - Randstad 13:32

1+ y ago13:32

13:32

To coincide with National Apprenticeship Week, Sarah talks to Sadie Besley, Randstad’s Divisional Managing Director for Professional Talent Solutions about flexi apprenticeships. A relatively new offering, we find out how they differ from traditional apprenticeships and what makes them work in certain industries. Allowing learners to take on short …

1
Peter Coy - MoD 40:28

1+ y ago40:28

40:28

In this episode, Sarah interviews Peter Coy, Social Value Implementation Lead at the Ministry of Defence. Tune in to learn about the Ministry of Defence's (MoD) commitment to social value through its dedicated Social Value Centre of Expertise. Uncover the broader scope of social value, spanning areas like social mobility, veteran support, and envir…

1
Claire Corkhill on Geological Radioactive Waste Disposal 31:07

1+ y ago31:07

31:07

In many countries, nuclear power is a significant part of the energy mix being planned as part of the drive to achieve net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions. This means that we will be producing a lot more radioactive waste, some of it with half-lives that approach geological timescales, which are orders of magnitude greater than timescales associated …

1
Mahesh Anand on What Human Return to the Moon Means for Lunar Geology 32:30

1+ y ago32:30

32:30

We have learned a great deal about the geology of the Moon from remote sensing instruments aboard lunar orbiters, from robot landers, from the Apollo landings, and from samples returned to the Earth by Apollo and robot landings. But in 2025, when NASA plans to land humans on the Moon for the first time since 1972, a new phase of lunar exploration i…

1
Susan Brantley on Earth's Geological Thermostat 27:44

1+ y ago27:44

27:44

At the core of Earth’s geological thermostat is the dissolution of silicate minerals in the presence of atmospheric carbon dioxide and liquid water. But at large scales, the effectiveness and temperature sensitivity of this reaction depends on geomorphological, climatic, and tectonic factors that vary greatly from place to place. As described in th…

1
Rebecca Phillips, Careers Enterprise Company 18:28

1+ y ago18:28

18:28

In this episode, Sarah meets with Rebecca Phillips, from the Careers and Enterprise Company, which is the national body for careers education in England. We’ll be finding out why employers need to develop early years careers education programmes and engage with schools, to help combat sector-wide skills shortages and secure a talent pipeline that t…

1
Clark Johnson on the Banded Iron Formations 28:42

1+ y ago28:42

28:42

Banded Iron Formations (BIFs) are a visually striking group of sedimentary rocks that are iron rich and almost exclusively deposited in the Precambrian. Their existence points to a major marine iron cycle that does not operate today. Several theories have been proposed to explain how the BIFs formed. While they all involve the precipitation of ferr…

1
Catherine Mottram on Dating Rock Deformation 36:05

1+ y ago36:05

36:05

The geological history of most regions is shaped by a whole range of processes that occur at temperatures ranging from above 800°C to as low as 100°C. The timing of events occurring over a particular temperature range can be recorded by a mineral which crystallizes over that range. The mineral calcite is suitable for recording low-temperature proce…

1
Martin Van Kranendonk on the Earliest Life on Earth 33:28

2y ago33:28

33:28

In this episode, Martin Van Kranendonk lays out a convincing case for life on Earth going back to at least 3.48 billion years ago. To find evidence for very ancient life, we need to look at rocks that have been largely undisturbed over billions of years of Earth history. Such rocks have been found in the Pilbara region of northwest Australia. As ex…

1
Susan McPherson, McPherson Strategies 21:36

2y ago21:36

21:36

In this episode, Sarah interviews Susan McPherson, the author of "The Lost Art of Connecting.” Susan McPherson is the founder and CEO of a US-based, B-Corp certified boutique communications consultancy, McPherson Strategies, specialising in impact communications for corporations, foundations, NGOs, and social enterprises. The interview covers vario…

1
Rob Butler on the Origin of the Alps 30:46

2y ago30:46

30:46

The Alps are the most intensively studied of all mountain chains, being readily accessed from the geological research centers of Europe. But despite this, there remains considerable uncertainty as to how they formed, especially in the Eocene (about 40 million years ago) when the events that led directly to Alpine mountain-building started. In the p…