Naming Ceremony for Endowed Chair (l-r): Provost Cindy Larive, Marilyn, Dean Kathryn Uhrich, Chancellor Kim Wilcox |
When I came to UC
Merced, the Dean at that time, Juan Meza, asked me only two questions during my
interview: would I accept a leadership role? And could I work with
under-represented minority students? I quickly answered yes to both. I’d been
frustrated at the Geophysical Lab, since I did not win the Director position
and had what my husband termed “Leadership Deficit Disorder”. When I came to UC
Merced, I became Chair of my faculty group and served in University leadership
positions. I tried at that time to get interest and traction to start a
“College of Sustainability in the Anthropocene” during the proposed campus
build out scheduled for 2018-2020. In an internal memo, I wrote:
“Creating a new College of
Sustainability in the Anthropocene will provide a home for undergraduates from
all majors, grad students from diverse graduate programs, and faculty from all
three of UCM’s current Schools. The hallmark of this College would be the
infusion of sustainability and environmental education and research to the
members of the College and the wider campus community. It would house student
clubs focusing on the Earth, recycling, and the environment; a green dormitory;
a strong, targeted general education program for its students; the community
garden; and a local and organic dining facility.
In addition to new
undergraduate opportunities, the College would provide a home for
interdisciplinary faculty where offices and laboratories would be co-located in
a single building that would promote the type of strong research that is hoped
for as a consequence of the Strategic Academic Focusing plan. The College could also become the natural
“home” for research units and community and scientific partners that are currently
distributed throughout Merced. For example, Sierra Nevada Research Institute,
UC Solar, and the UC Natural Reserves might all benefit from having their
administrative offices in close contact with faculty and students.”
The concept and vision
didn’t fly very far at UC Merced and was eventually watered down and co-opted
by other individuals on campus. People were uncomfortable with the word
Anthropocene, thinking that it referred to apes or monkeys of some sort.
I follow the job listings for academic positions so that
I can send them on to postdocs looking for permanent positions. A posting
caught my eye in early 2016 when a couple of things were happening in my life:
1) I was searching for an answer to my medical issues, and 2) I was
disappointed that I wasn’t able to build a coalition to consider an
interdisciplinary program at UC Merced. The position description was for the
Director of the Environmental Dynamics and Geo-Ecology (EDGE) Institute. It was
associated with an endowed chair and at the rank of distinguished professor.
Wow! A faculty position in Geo-Ecology, a field that I’d worked in for decades
but I’d not recognized that I was in fact a card-carrying Geo-ecologist. I
wrote an email of inquiry to Professors Mary Droser and Tim Lyons at UC Riverside
and heard back immediately.
The start of the EDGE Institute Laboratory, 2016 |
Mary
Droser is a feisty, seasoned UC professor who is a premier paleontologist
studying ancient organisms that inhabited the ocean hundreds of millions of
years ago. Even at formal campus events, Mary sports her signature flip flops,
cropped pants, and beach-inspired T-shirts. Known widely throughout campus and
the paleontological community, she serves as my unofficial mentor. Mary tells
the story of talking to me on the phone, pacing around a parking lot, thinking
“We want her to apply!” Which I did a couple of weeks later. Fast forward to my
interview in which I was asked to provide a Vision of the new EDGE Institute.
I’m one of those people who can be quiet, but if asked, I can spout a good
vision for just about anything I’m interested in. I can also get things done.
My challenge has always been bringing other people along and building
coalition. I received a very generous offer from UC Riverside to “get the party
started” with EDGE.
It took a good three months for me to move to Riverside,
get a lab underway, and learn who the players were on the Riverside campus. I’d
had enough of dealing with Deans, Provost, and other administrators and was
happy to work together with an invested, smart faculty from different departments.
I met many times with small groups of faculty and one-on-one with interested
people listening to what they thought EDGE should be. I set up my outer office with
white boards, a screen for presenting talks, a coffee bar, and a comfortable
conference table. Humble as it is--I’d started the EDGE Institute.
L-R: Ying Lin, Aradhna Tripati, Valery Terwilliger, Jess Miller Camp |
My endowed chair—the Wilbur W. Mayhew Endowed Chair of
Geoecology—is not named after the donor, but after a UC Riverside professor who
devoted a major part of his career to preserving land for scientific study. Bill
Mayhew was one of the original creators of University of California’s Natural
Reserve System. He was a beloved teacher of ecology to many undergrads that he
took into the field. Bill was also adept at convincing landowners to sell their
property to UC for a good price. Today, UC Riverside has five UC Natural
Reserves highlighting desert and dry mountain landscapes. At UC Riverside, I
began a slow alteration of my personal scientific agenda to include a wider
audience interested in working on scientific problems related to the
environment and sustainability, as well as climate change.
Marilyn schmoozing Dean Uhrich and Donors |
An Endowed
Chair at a University usually means that donor(s) have put up a substantial sum
of money, usually $1 Million or greater, to support a faculty member of unusual
promise. Those funds are placed into an account which generates interest, that is
then used to support the work of the faculty member. In my case, I use these
funds (about $50,000 per year) to support EDGE Institute’s activities in the broadest
sense—buying equipment that serves multiple investigators, promoting student
research, outreach activities, and personnel that gets EDGE’s mission
accomplished.
Center: Lifelong friend Franny Kasen talking to former student Matt Hoch |
One of the first tasks that I needed to accomplish
was to hire an administrative assistant, whose job it is to do all of the
myriad administrative actions that attend creating a new Institute. In February
2017, Ms. Jeanette Westbrook was brought on board and has provided the critical
assistance needed to communicate with an ever-larger UC Riverside population of
scientists, organizing and planning events, assisting with outreach activities,
and creating an interesting and dynamic web presence. Because of the duties of
a Full Professor, along with moving a laboratory and establishing a new research
program at UC Riverside, it was not until I hired
Jeanette that I really gained traction on making something of EDGE.
With a mane of dark hair always fashionably styled,
Jeanette has become a resource not only for EDGE, but also for the Earth and
Planetary Sciences Department as a whole. She has a smile that lights up a
room, a way of tip-toeing in and getting things done. Together we have
traversed numerous personal challenges in the short time we’ve worked together,
forging what she has called a title of “Work Mom” for me based on our
conversations about life, how to get along with difficult people, and getting
ahead. Finding and keeping an administrative assistant has been key to the
successes I’ve been able to accomplish with EDGE.
L-R: Jon Nye, Jeanette Westbrook, Bobby Nakamoto |
My 2nd major
task was building the EDGE Institute Laboratory. I purchased a suite of
instruments that complements capabilities in the Earth, Botany, and
Environmental Science departments with my startup funds because I wanted to
extend UCR’s research portfolio from paleontology to ecology to astrobiology.
Although I found singular pockets of analytical strength at UCR, it was clear
to me that a more cohesive plan for stable isotope research was needed. With
the help of a recent UCR undergraduate, we cleaned out and organized the
laboratory suite creating a working environment that has attracted graduate and
undergraduate students from throughout the UCR campus.
I purchased a first-of-its-kind
mass spectrometer setup that creates a new way of investigating biochemical
pathways and enzymatic mechanisms in living organisms, taking advantage of the
opportunity to buy new equipment. The instrument includes two mass
spectrometers which run in tandem: an isotope ratio mass spectrometer that
precisely measures isotope compositions to the 5th decimal place
along with a triple quadrupole mass spectrometer that can accurately determine
the position of an isotope label within a molecule. During my 40+year career in
this field, I have never had such a nice instrument to carry out my research!
This mass spectrometer is now the central workhorse of the EDGE Institute and
will be used to interrogate intramolecular clumped isotopic compositions of
metabolites (e.g. amino acids) and more complicated biomarkers. While it is
known that microbes, animals, and plants use different metabolic pathways for
simple molecules, combining traditional compound specific isotope analysis with
site-specific isotope analyses will allow us to determine rates and fluxes, as
well to tease out sources from complex mixtures.
I completed the hiring of key
personnel including a laboratory manager, Dr. Ying Lin, and a postdoctoral
scholar, Dr. Kaycee Morra. Dr. Lin is managing two isotope ratio mass
spectrometers, about ten graduate students, and a handful of undergrads in the
EDGE Institute Laboratory. Kaycee is working with recent Ph.D. Jon Nye and grad
student Bobby Nakamoto on my new tandem mass spec.
Nye, Westbrook, Nakamoto, Morra, Barnett, Fogel, and Lin |
My second
instrumental push complements faculty members in the Environmental Science
department: Francesca Hopkins, Hoori Ajami, and Pete Homyak, newly hired
Assistant Professors. Together we have assembled a suite of
instruments—portable and able to “run on the go”—designed to measure the
concentrations and isotope compositions of four of the major greenhouse gases:
carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and water vapor. We recently purchased
a Mercedes Sprinter van that is fixed up to hold these four instruments as well
as a full weather system. The van has a trailer hitch which can pull a trailer
owned by botany professor Darrel Jenerette that includes a tower, generators
and other gear for remote use in the field. It is the University of
California’s first full mobile isotope laboratory, and one of very few in the
country.
The van
travels around California to measure the “breathing” of the environment in
places like the Salton Sea, UC’s Natural Reserves, dairy farms, and ponderosa
pine forests. The instruments are fully operational when the van is moving,
complementing the air quality instrumentation and research that UCR has at
CE-CERT, the College of Engineering’s environmental research unit. It will also
be deployed in agricultural fields to learn how perturbations in climate and
the environment affect the fluxes of greenhouse gases. From a personal perspective,
I have no experience using these types of instruments so I am very much so
looking forward to learning something new.
Next, I’ve
developed a series of graduate symposia to bring students from different
departments together, showcase their work, and enjoy good Mexican food. For our
first symposium, I invited geomicrobiologist Jan Amend from USC as our keynote
speaker. The event was attended by about 100 people from across the campus.
Grad students presented posters, and we had a banquet of local Mexican food to
celebrate EDGE Institute’s new beginning. We also awarded graduate research
scholarships funded by UCR alumnus Michael Devirian and by the Endowed Chair
fund. Students submitted competitive proposals and were judged by a faculty
committee. Now, Jeanette and I have organized three of these symposia—each time
serving a Mexican feast along with cold beers and wine. The students’ work
ranges from understanding speciation of the California palm, Washingtonia, to studying microbes
living on commercial grapevines, to learning about the effects of humans on
populations of marine mammals in South America.
Mexican feast, Grad Symposium |
Logo for our Mobile Isotope Van |
In 2017, I learned that the Gender
and Sexuality Studies (GSST) Department in the College of Humanities, Arts, and
Social Science held the major in Sustainability at UCR. This was surprising
news to me. I worked to integrate EDGE with their 100+ Sustainability
undergraduates hiring two undergrads majoring in Sustainability and had them
work on projects of their choice to improve UCR’s campus sustainability program.
Katherine Avila chose to work on implementing recycling in the Geology
building. She supported EDGE during public outreach events organizing
activities for the public that included making tote bags out of old T-shirts
and self-watering planters out of used water bottles. Intern Stephanie Cleese
(Sustainability Class of 2018) worked to implement composting of food waste on
campus. She interviewed people from dining to facilities to the UCR’s community
garden (R’Garden) and beyond to develop a simple protocol for keeping food
waste from being shipped across the state, UCR’s current procedure. These
simple activities gave the students hands-on training that they couldn’t
possibly learn in the classroom.
Bombay Beach sculpture |
For my teaching duties, I taught classes in Stable Isotope
Ecology and Biogeochemistry—old favorites. I also taught many freshmen seminar
classes. For one of the freshmen seminars we read “Silent Spring” by Rachel
Carson, teaching students about the effects of pesticides on the environment.
Another freshmen class read “Water, Water Everywhere”, and I taught them about
water rights in the West, how the Colorado River functions, and water “sense”.
I’m particularly proud that I taught a class in the Gender and Sexuality
Studies department to 7 sustainability majors on the subject of the Salton Sea.
This class was the first time these students had met a
“real” scientist, not just a lecturer in a large impersonal classroom. One week
we read and discussed social science papers and issues, the next week I taught
them basic science related to the Salton Sea. Chris and I took the students on
a field trip to experience the beauty and human-challenges of the region. It
was mid-May, rather late for seeing many birds, which was disappointing to me.
The students, however, enjoyed seeing the public art sculptures on the
shoreline at the outskirts of funky Bombay Beach, and then speaking to a 5th
grade elementary school teacher who discussed the environmental justice
challenges of living in the Salton Sea area. Back in the classroom, we
discussed racial issues regarding the people who lived around the Sea—mostly
Hispanic immigrants and many Native Americans. On student remarked, “I really
don’t like white people.” I was the only white person in the classroom!
Fortunately for me, I think being in the wheelchair made me less
threatening—less “white” and less a “scientist” who many of the students
thought were suspect. I learned from these experiences.
GSST class at Lorene Salas School in Mecca |
Now, in my last year at UC Riverside, I am working with the
Directors of the campus Natural Reserve System (Kim Hammond) and Center for Conservation
Biology (Darrel Jenerette) to create a Consortium of Ecological and Environmental
Centers at UCR. It’s time to strategically think
about what the EDGE Institute will “look like” once I retire in June 2020.
Based on my personal connections with other faculty on campus, as well as
consultation with my Dean Kathryn Uhrich, I have been working on a plan to
build a consortium with the Center for Conservation Biology (CCB) and UCR’s
Natural Reserve System (NRS). In so many ways, this is a “no brainer”, but as
with many things, the devil is in the details.
In 2017, I
assembled a team of faculty and students who are very keen to work on the basic
science underpinning the large restoration effort that California and the US
Fish and Wildlife departments will be leading on the Salton Sea basin. Starting
in 2018, the water flowing into the Salton Sea was largely diverted to San
Diego for domestic use. The migratory birds and endangered species of fish that
inhabit the region will be forced to adjust. It is predicted that once
shorelines are exposed to air as the lake shrinks, toxic dust will be blown
around the Imperial and Coachella Valleys. In short, the area is going to
become a major environmental problem for the coming decade. In 2017, we held the
first all hands meeting to discuss the Salton Sea’s past, present, and future.
Although an
interdisciplinary, inter-campus grant was not funded, I have forged ahead on the
Salton Sea research. This spring UCR hosted scientists from the US and
California Fish and Wildlife Service, who are actively working on ecological
problems at the Sea. My recent Ph.D. Jon Nye started a one-year postdoc
examining the stable isotope ecology of the fish and birds in the region. We’re
also collaborating with Tim Lyons and his postdoc, purchasing a zippy
inflatable Zodiac boat so we can get off the shorelines and sample more of the
Sea itself.
Related to this research is a new
project I’m starting with UCR’s new Science to Policy group headed up by
emeritus Prof. Susan Hackwood, former Dean of UCR’s College of Engineering and
founder of California’s Council on Science and Technology in Sacramento. I’m
working on writing a scientific strategic plan for the Salton Sea that will
address the research that needs to be done in the next five years as mitigation
plans begin to be implemented. We’re looking for a sponsor for this report and
developing ties to local legislators and the Salton Sea Authority. Having my
work related to science policy is a completely new direction for me and doable
as my physical self continues a slow decline.
Jonny Nye sampling fish, Salton Sea |
Research on
the Salton Sea dovetails nicely with CCB’s continuing work on the
urban-wildland interfaces in Southern California. The EDGE Institute’s mobile
van and laser isotope equipment are contributing to CCB’s studies. One of the
goals of the Consortium is to have a set of intersecting research themes:
Salton Sea (EDGE), Urban-Wildlands (CCB), and the San Jacinto-Salton Basin
Watershed (NRS). We’ve got the parts and pieces—integration is going to take
more work.
Graduate
student engagement is one of EDGE’s goals, and going forward something the
Consortium would like to foster in a more defined way. We held three events
geared towards grad students in 2018-2019: 1) The Best Donuts in SoCal—a
morning coffee and donut informal meet-and-greet; 2) Salton Sea field trip in
February led by my husband Chris Swarth and me; 3) Annual Graduate Research
Symposium and awards. EDGE—from endowment dollars—funded six research awards
for graduate students including one taking place in an NRS site and one
relating to conservation. This October, we co-sponsored the Science-2-Policy
Hackathon, a 48-hour computer extravaganza designed to bring an
interdisciplinary group of students to study a topic (in this case the Salton
Sea) and produce a policy statement.
Chris and Marilyn (Center) leading Salton Sea trip |
Last but
not least, EDGE joined UCR’s campus efforts in Sustainability. EDGE Institute
led by Jeanette Westbrook sponsored a Cool Campus Challenge team. What is the Cool Campus
Challenge? A friendly competition to reduce UC's carbon footprint and create a
culture of sustainability across the campuses. Over 30 participants signed up and reduced their carbon emissions from April 1 - 26.
Not only did EDGE enter the Challenge, but also more importantly we sponsored
the Pentland Planet Pals from the undergraduate Pentland dormitories. I’m proud
to report that the Pentland Planet Pals came in 1st Place on the UCR
campus!
Pentland Puppies and Pizza Party-Fun! |
Working
alongside our EDGE Institute Intern Patrice Barnett, we organized the Puppies
and Pizza Party for over 200 undergrads. About a dozen puppies (well, actually
dogs) came to campus and the students took turns petting them, throwing balls
for them, and enjoying the friendly vibe of a puppy. They also scarfed 20
pizzas in record time. Intern Patrice Barnett was in my first freshmen seminar
class that I taught in Spring 2017. She stood out as someone special—and we
kept in touch. I hired her as the Sustainability Intern, funded by endowed
chair funds, in Winter 2019. She’s a star. I am convinced she’ll go on to great
things.
As I wind
down my time as an Endowed Professor and transition to an emeritus professor, I
will be spending time writing the Salton Sea policy and science report, working
with colleagues on forming a more perfect Consortium, and continuing to figure
out how EDGE can be a long-term viable force at UCR. The opportunity for me to
do something interdisciplinary and outward-reaching has been a real joy. The
opportunity for me to implement campus building activities that bring EDGE Institute
to the forefront of students and faculty is a fitting last chapter to my
career.
Isa and Tope--the EDGE mascots |