Welcome to the first Early Career Polar Scientist blog post. We will be posting stories from our group weekly during the IPY. The International Early Career Polar Scientist Network has just been created as a way for young polar researchers to network on an international and interdisciplinary basis beginning early in their careers. Currently we have members from over 11 different countries and are growing rapidly with both Antarctic and Arctic researchers.
It has been said that there are two types of people driven to go to Antarctica; the ones that go once for the adventure and the others that once they go, get ice in their veins and keep coming back. This blog entry is not really about science, but about the Ice in my veins and how it got there.
I was taking a Stream Ecology class the first semester of my PhD program at the University of Colorado with Diane McKnight. One day she came in and announced that after class she would be showing slides of her trips to the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica. I didn’t know anything about Antarctica, or even that people went there, so I thought I’d stay after and see what it was all about.
Diane showed amazing vistas of dry sand and huge sheets of ice with small trickles of water glistening in the 24-hour sunlight, freeze-dried algal mats that come ‘alive’ within 20 minutes of seeing liquid water, and talked about helicopter flights to the sites and surviving the harsh continent where humans can leave no trace of their presence. She started talking about nitrate in the streams and looking directly at me… I was hooked and had tons of questions. After the talk she asked if I would have any interest in going. Not being a person to turn down opportunities, this one sounded very ‘cool’ and I naturally said yeah!
Nothing much was really discussed about my possible trip until a year and a half later when I got an email from Diane that simply said “You’re scheduled on the Dec. 14th flight to McMurdo, so you’ll probably leave Denver on the 10th. You will be receiving your medical packet and forms shortly – Diane” Umm, I guess I am going South! I immediately had to break the news to my family that I wouldn’t be home for Christmas and that I was heading South for the winter. I had no idea how much that email from Diane would change my life, my career goals, or my internal compass!
My first trip to Antarctica was in 2002-2003 as part of the NSF funded Long-term Ecological Research program in the McMurdo Dry Valleys. I was on Diane McKnight’s Stream Team working on algal mat distribution and composition. I was one of 4 graduate students on this team and we had a US Geological Survey stream guro and a fantastic teacher from Illinois. None of us had been to the “Ice” before, so it was going to be an interesting experience!
There were many exciting moments on that first trip and it would take me at least two weeks to write them all down. Louise Huffman, the teacher that was with us was part of the NSF Teachers Experiencing Antarctica and the Arctic program. Her job was to do the science with us during the day and then write a daily journal for students and other people to follow. You can find all of Louise’s very well done journals at: http://tea.armadaproject.org/tea_huffmanfrontpage.html
Living in a tent in the middle of the world’s coldest, driest, and highest desert with no running water or flushing toilets should have scared me off, but instead I began to think of the Dry Valleys as Home! I couldn’t stop telling stories about how great that place was and all the new and exciting things I learned, both scientifically and personally. I learned to depend on myself and my team. Those who know me know that my life quickly became ‘All Antarctica – All the Time’. My house is now decorated with penguins and fake ice-bergs and every conversation I have usually contains one or two ties to the Ice.
After finishing my PhD in acid mine drainage streams, I knew I had to get back Home – back to the Ice. I went to work with Bess Ward at Princeton University where I studied bacteria in the streams in the Dry Valleys in more detail. We learned that the nitrogen really does play an important role in the life of the Dry Valleys. I was able to go back to Antarctica two more times for 2 to 3 month periods. These experiences were very different from my first trip, but all have left a very big impression on me and now everyone I meet.
I am now a professor of Microbial Ecology at Kent State University in Ohio. One of my favorite things to do is educate the public about the Poles and how different and important they are to our everyday lives and how little we really understand about them. I was in a store the other day buying some lights to decorate my house when I noticed a coloring book titled “North Pole Animals”. I picked it up looking at it thinking what a great present this would make for my nephews. Then I got to the back page and I saw a picture of a penguin. URGH! I said out loud in the store, “When are people going to learn that Polar Bears are at the North Pole and Penguins are at the South Pole!?!” One woman actually came up to me and asked “Really?” We got into a long discussion about the differences between the poles and the IPY and how important it is for us to understand these delicate ecosystems and how much they really impact our daily lives. She was really interested and I think I made a difference because I went back to that store a few days later and the coloring books were no longer there. I asked the manager if they had any more and he said they returned them because of some inaccuracies. Hmmm, not sure if that was me or not, but you never know J
I am a very lucky person because my job is something I am very passionate about. I wake up every morning and do things I love to do. One of the reasons I helped create the Early Career network is to expose other people to the neat things at the Poles and get others involved. I am pretty active in spreading the messages of the International Polar Year and believe this is a responsibility I have because I am so lucky and am able to do something that is so meaningful to me and so fun!
I hope you enjoy the entries that will be posted in this blog during the IPY. If you have any questions or would like more information on the International Early Career Polar Scientist network, please email me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .