Chemical & Engineering News Digital Edition ... - IMM@BUCT

DAVID PYLE
Sea, the Black Sea, and the Arabian Sea. So
far, he’s done 14 dives in Alvin.
As exciting as their jobs sound, these
chemists are not primarily after the thrill of
adventure. Instead, they say, they’re driven
by the science. “I’m not somebody who
goes out to find tough places to get samples
from just for the sake of it,” Mather says.
“But if the science justifies it, then that’s
very exciting.”
Nevertheless, it’s safe to say that these
chemists are all explorers at heart. Kounaves
says that when he was a child, he
wanted to be an astronaut because he was
fascinated with space exploration. As an
undergraduate at California State University,
San Diego, Kounaves couldn’t decide
between physics, biology, and engineering,
so he ended up majoring in chemistry.
In graduate school at the University
of Geneva, in Switzerland, he focused on
environmental chemistry and immersed
himself in fieldwork. As he studied the environment
on Earth, he began to wonder,
“What about environments on other planets?”
Little by little, he gravitated back to
his childhood dream of space exploration.
Today, Kounaves is the science lead for the
Phoenix Mars mission’s
wet chemistry
lab.
Unlike Kounaves,
Luther
considers himself a
late bloomer in the
world of extreme
chemistry. He
ON THE EDGE
Wearing a gas
mask, Mather sits
on the crater rim of
Villarrica Volcano, in
Chile, after collecting
gas and aerosol
samples.
earned a Ph.D. in physical inorganic chemistry
from the University of Pittsburgh in
1972 and taught chemistry and physics at
Kean College of New Jersey for 14 years.
While attending scientific meetings, Luther
found himself engaging in conversation
with many oceanographers who were
doing extensive fieldwork. “The next thing
I knew, I found that this was kind of interesting,”
he says.
In 1986, he joined the University of
Delaware’s College of Marine Studies. The
following year, Luther took his first major
MUSTAFA YUCEL
DEEP-SEA EXPLORER
Luther (right) and
Alvin pilot Mark O.
Spear prepare for a
deep-sea dive.
expedition to the
Mediterranean Sea
to study hypersaline
and anoxic
brines at the bottom
of the sea. The
next year, he went
on a research expedition to study chemical
reactions in the Black Sea. After that, he
was hooked. “It’s possible at almost any
part of your career to get involved in this
kind of work,” he says.
At age 31, Mather is the youngest of the
extreme chemists C&EN interviewed. She
says that after receiving an M.S. degree in
chemistry, she decided to pursue research
with a more environmental angle. She also
knew she didn’t want to be in the lab all
the time. She found the perfect match with
her Ph.D. work on volcanic atmospheric
chemistry.
Mather says that doing fieldwork allows
her to stay in touch with the big picture of
what she’s doing. “In my line of science,
if you don’t go out some of the time, you
sort of lose touch a little bit with how the
samples are being collected, and it’s good
to see something through from collection
to analysis to writing the paper. That way,
you get a very thorough understanding of
the science.”
DOING EXTREME chemistry doesn’t have
to interfere with your work-life balance.
The chemists point out that their time in
the field encompasses only a small percentage
of their jobs. Mather says she spends
only about four weeks a year doing fieldwork.
Luther spends one to two months a
year doing fieldwork. And Kounaves is out
in the field for about five weeks every two
years. The rest of the time, the researchers
are back at their universities analyzing data
and writing their papers. Mather says that’s
actually the part of her job she finds most
exciting because “that’s when you start
making sense of the results you pulled in.”
As Kounavis, Luther, and Mather show,
chemists can decide to go extreme at any
point in their career. “The important thing
is to realize that you have the ability to enable
yourself to do these things,” Kounaves
says. “Just because you’re a chemist doesn’t
mean you’re limited to doing exactly what
chemists are supposed to be doing.” What’s
critical is finding a scientific topic that
you’re passionate about, Luther says.
Mather agrees. “You have to enjoy the
science,” she says; otherwise, the fun stops
at the end of the adventure. ■
WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG 56 NOVEMBER 3, 2008