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Adrian Brown is the deputy scientist on the Mars 2020 Rover mission at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.. Adrian uses his background in geology to explore Mars via the Mars Rover, living out his childhood fascination with the planets. He...

EXP391 / EXP397T sedimentologist and volcanologist Dr. Mike Widdowson talks to Onboard Outreach Officer Maya Pincus about the twists and turns throughout his life that resulted in his various adventures aboard the JOIDES Resolution.

Chris Klein, an Andover native and author, discusses his German and Irish roots. He recounts his life growing up amidst classism in the 1980s. Inspired by AP US History class, he discovered his passion for research-based writing, determined to preserve...

As an associate professor of Earth & Environmental Sciences and volcanologist at Denison University, Erik Klemetti works on volcanoes all over the planet, from Chile to New Zealand to the Cascades of Oregon and California. His research focusses on how...

John M. Moody started out as a small boy from a small town in Texas, visiting Lake Texoma and admiring the wealth of fossils all around him. This led him to a career in geology through which he pioneered the...

Noah Petro is a research scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center- which doesn’t seem like much, but it includes being the lab chief of the Planetary Geology, Geophysics and Geochemistry Lab at Goddard and being the project scientist...

From a childhood filled with archeology lessons from his dad, to graduate studies measuring gases from active volcanoes, and then designing early warning systems to detect volcanic activity, Dr. Florian Schwandner's life goal has been to make a difference in...

Melissa Scruggs is currently working towards earning her PhD in Volcanology at UC Santa Barbara, and there's nothing else in the world she would rather be doing. But she didn't always know this- after dropping out of high school to...

Eli asks his great uncle for advice on becoming a scientist. They discuss their love of reading and the worlds a good book can open for you.

Dr. Penny Boston is a woman of many talents! A notable academic with a background in microbiology and geology, Penny has investigated microbial life in the lab and in the field as a speleologist -- someone who studies cave science....

Elizabeth Schaeffer hasn’t followed the most straight-forward route into the geosciences but that’s allowed her to discover the field she most wants to study. She’s a non-traditional undergraduate studying applied geology and talks about recent internships she’s done that have...

Rachel Hampton ended up in the geosciences because she couldn’t find the art history class she was looking for. From asking a TA if she could join him on fieldwork to doing her senior thesis on volcanoes without a professor...

Kathy Cashman, professor at the University of Bristol, worked on the 1980 eruption at Mount St. Helen’s in Washington, one of the first monitored volcanic eruptions in the world (“it was a ‘who’s who’ of volcanology and geology”). Thanks to...

For the last 14 years, Gari Mayberry has put her volcanology background to work as a disaster response coordinator at USAID. Disasters come in many shapes and sizes so that specialty is a start, but often Gari finds herself connecting...

Doug Archer has a rock collection, only he’s never actually held any of the stones, and they are hundreds of millions of miles away on Mars. As a research scientist working with the Curiosity Mars rover in NASA’s Johnson Space...

Jacob Bleacher has spent a great deal of time preparing for Mars and the moon, even though he has never left the Earth’s orbit. The research scientist at Goddard Space Flight Center is currently on detail at NASA Headquarters as...

The only interviewee to describe her chosen field as a “hoot,” Sonja Behnke, Los Alamos National Laboratory, has been actively involved in atmospheric electricity research since 2008. Before that, she was a math instructor as an AmeriCorps volunteer. As a...

Roberta Rudnick, Professor at University of California Santa Barbara, was captivated by science from a young age, witnessing the Mt. Saint Helens eruption while in college, and traveling the globe to understand plate tectonics, and how and why continents form...

For Jim Pizzuto, a career in science was never the plan. His father was a landscape painter, and he grew up surrounded by art and the majestic landscape paintings that his father produced. By the time he entered college, he...

While an undergraduate at the University of Puerto Rico – Mayagüez, Luis Gonzalez couldn’t decide on whether he wanted to pursue a major in physics, chemistry, or mathematics. To his surprise, he found that he could do all three as...

Ensign Dale Gump, a Commissioned Officer within NOAA Corps, talks to Nathaniel Janick for the American Geophysical Union’s Paths Through Science project about the NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps, his work aboard the NOAAS Thomas Jefferson, and advice on successful careers...