Asmeret Asefaw Berhe

Asmeret Asefaw Berhe is a soil biogeochemist and ecologist whose research explores how soil processes regulate Earth’s climate. She is a Professor of Soil Biogeochemistry and the Ted and Jan Falasco Chair in Earth Sciences and Geology at the University of California, Merced. Her work investigates how environmental changes such as wildfire, drought, and erosion influence carbon and nitrogen cycles.

Asmeret served as Director of the Office of Science at the U.S. Department of Energy from 2022 to 2024, overseeing national research programs, funding initiatives, and 28 scientific user facilities. She has been recognized for her contributions to global environmental assessment, including work on the United Nations Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, and is a passionate advocate for women in STEM, co-leading programs to improve inclusion and equity in the geosciences.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:02

Hello, and welcome to the Scientess Podcast, where we talk to women with successful scientific careers about the joys of science. I'm your host, Karen Levy, an environmental health scientist at the School of Public Health at University of Washington in Seattle. I'm excited to share with you the stories of some pretty incredible women on this podcast. My hope is that these interviews will show aspiring young scientists that a career in science is not only possible, but can also be extremely rewarding and a whole lot of fun. Let's jump in with today's featured scientists. Dr.

Speaker 3 0:36

Asmeret Asefaw Berhe is a professor of soil biogeochemistry and Falasco Chair in Earth Sciences in the Department of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of California, Merced. Her research on soil biogeochemistry sits at the interface of soil science and the science of global change. Her team works to understand how changing environmental conditions affect vital soil processes and how, in turn, soil dynamics affect the release of greenhouse gases from soil into the atmosphere. From 2022 to 2024, she served as the director of the Department of Energy Office of Science, the nation's largest funder of the physical sciences, with an annual budget of $8.2 billion with a B. The office funds scientific facilities such as atom smashers and X-ray synchrotons. She was the first person of color to lead the office, appointed by President Joe Biden and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. In addition to that position, I'll just cherry pick a couple of other highlights from her record. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering and chair of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, U.S. National Committee for Soil Sciences. She's also a fellow of both the American Geophysical Union and the Geological Society of America. She is the recipient of the John M. Hayes Award from the Geochemical Society, the Joanne Simpson Medal from the American Geophysical Union, and was recognized as a great immigrant, great American from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. She's the director of the Sierra Nevada Research Institute slash climate institute, and has also served as the Associate Dean for Graduate Education at UC Merced. She regularly engages in public scholarship as a contributor to Time magazine and other outlets. She's given multiple TED talks, and as a public speaker, she highlights how her work sits at the intersection of science, policy, and social justice. She's a passionate advocate for inclusive excellence in the academy and specifically in STEM. Asmeret and I met as graduate students at UC Berkeley, and I have really enjoyed following her career and accomplishments over the ensuing years. So, Asmeret, welcome to the Scientists Podcast. Thank you for having me, Karen. Excited to join you. So I just want to start with some basics. I'm interested to know how you got to where you are today. And can you tell us a little bit about the arc of your career?

Speaker 5 3:04

Indeed. So I was born and raised in Eritrea in East Africa. And I completed my primary education as well as my first degree, my bachelor's in soil science at the University of Asmara in Eritrea. And I like to tell folks who may not know that, you know, Eritrea is this wonderful, beautiful place on the coast of the Red Sea, incredibly diverse landscapes, a diverse community made out of nine ethnic groups. The country has over 300 islands on the Red Sea, with the most pristine coasts that you can imagine. And the elevation kind of as you go up from the coast to the inland rises quite quickly. So that comes with an incredible diversity of ecosystems, from deserts to very small but really important humid tropical forests and beautiful environments overall. But part of the history in Eritrea is also that the country has been in basically kind of nonstop political turmoil for decades. But what's really helped in my case and what kind of helped set me up for success in many cases is that even though the political situation in the country and, you know, wars and armed conflicts were happening throughout my childhood and most of my life, my family made an early decision that the thing that they were going to do for their kids is provide us with education. Access to education, motivation, books, access to information in every way that you can imagine. And so I grew up in a family surrounded by books, a house that's really filled with books in every direction that you look, being encouraged to read, just learn. Just learn about the world around us and focus on education, and that education being the most important gift that our family can give us. And they did. They provided that support. My parents set the example that we needed. And so kind of my story starts there. And then um And were they specifically wanting you to do science education or were they scientists? Neither one of them was a scientist. Actually, they have a very interesting history. My mom had to interrupt her school when she got married. She was getting ready to finish high school. So she paused until she had six kids. And when the youngest of six kids was starting kindergarten, she started college.

Speaker 3 5:28

Wow. Where were you in the order?

Speaker 5 5:30

I'm number five in the order.

Speaker 3 5:32

Oh, wow.

Speaker 5 5:32

And it wasn't enough that she was raising six kids. She also had a full-time job. And so it took her seven years, but she finished college with flying colors, incredible success. And she studied business management. And that was kind of the career that she had even before, and even more so after she got her college degree. My dad started out as actually a soccer player, a professional soccer player. He was a national team soccer player, pretty renowned soccer player in his time. But then he went on to study political science first, and then got a law degree. And for most of his life, especially after I was born, he was a practicing lawyer and then a law professor later on. So neither one of them had a science background, and they didn't really push us to go in any specific field. To them, it was just important that we always learned, had an open mind, and were willing to learn, and just choose whatever excited us. And they were super supportive. I started out college thinking I would go into a pre-med and probably major in chemistry for my undergrad. And then when I got to the university, I learned about this department of soil science. It was called soil and water conservation. And I was just taken, fascinated by this. It's like I never knew about the science of soil until then. And so I was so taken and interested, and they were very encouraging for me to just pursue that. If that sounds as interesting as you're telling us, they said, go for it. At first, it was just learning about this world under our foot that I really did not have much of an appreciation of, at least not the science of it, right, until then. But then once I started, there were a few just unbelievably good professors in the department. And it's this is a time and place to give you a perspective that we didn't have really access to a whole lot of fancy instrumentation or or even free access to the natural environment, because we're living at the time in a newly liberated country after decades of war. So we weren't free to wander around in our natural environment. Nobody was, because first there was wars, then there are landmines and there are other remnants of war. So there's always fear. And so we didn't really have access to all of that, or even many books or things like that that you can imagine. But the limited resources that they had, they not only made the education interesting and exciting, but they also could manage to just share with us that just the wonder and the awe of soil and just pursuing education. And so it ended up it was amazing. It was, I still, I just cannot even imagine how they did it. But some of these professors taught us five courses and things like that because they were they didn't have enough people, so they had to step in on a lot of different courses and wore many different hats as administrators and professors and mentors and a lot of things. But but they still were incredibly encouraging. There weren't a lot of women. There were three of us in a department of about 55 students in in our department in particular, and they were just incredibly encouraging and supportive and made the learning process exciting.

Speaker 3 8:43

That's really cool. I mean, a great teacher can just make such a huge difference.

Speaker 5 8:48

Huge, huge. I still can remember a number of amazing teachers, both from when I was younger in high school and college, that just made an incredible difference.

Speaker 3 8:59

When did you figure out that you actually wanted to do this, like to pursue science as a career? So you got turned on to the topic, and then how did that then take you to studying at UC Berkeley?

Speaker 5 9:11

Yeah, so the science part, I think I was pretty clear early on. I went to college, pretty sure that I was gonna major in science. I just assumed it would be chemistry as a pre-med. And then when I pursued soil, I just really liked it. There were a few moments afterwards when I thought maybe I should rethink this and consider maybe going back the medical school route. And then quickly decided, no, I really like the decision my 18, 19-year-old self made. That was amazing, and uh and kind of stuck with it. And so before I came to Berkeley, though, I when I first came to the US, the first school I attended was Michigan State. I pursued a master's there in political ecology, in particular political ecology of land degradation. There, I think I got an even deeper appreciation for not just the science associated with land degradation, but also the complex and intricate sociopolitical and economic factors that go into how and why human communities degrade land and the intricate process of restoring degrading lands, in particular in areas with complex history. Like I was studying land degradation that's caused by armed conflicts, in particular landmines. And so that was a really, really incredible experience, that program in Michigan State, which no longer exists. It's a different department, more focused on sustainability at this point. But it was an incredible department, an amazing experience I had there. And then I came to Berkeley. I think the seeds for especially wanting to pursue an interdisciplinary kind of program that includes both science, the natural sciences regarding soil and political ecology, kind of strengthened, if you will, when I was in Michigan State. And that's when I came to Berkeley. And we met at ESFEM, the Department of Environmental Science Policy and Management. For the larger part after that, my career in focus and research stayed similar around soils, largely here and there, including in the political ecology, whenever possible.

Speaker 3 11:09

And so what excites you about your science and how has this changed over time?

Speaker 5 11:17

I think the most exciting thing to me about soil is the fact that this, you know, very shallow in the large kind of grand scheme of things, if you will, soil is a very thin layer covering the Earth's land surface, right? But that thin layer is what makes a difference between life and lifelessness on planet Earth. And that to me is just always an exciting thing that will never get old, that astonishment and amazement that I have about the incredible power of soil. And if something has changed over time, it has to be my appreciation also of not just the exciting nature and the importance nature of soil, but also the beauty that's in soil. Just incredible amount of life, beautifully diverse life forms working together beautifully to support not just humans and animals, but all life forms on land. The incredible ability that soil has to regulate our climate and recycling of nutrients, water movement and quality around the world, of course, provide us with habitat and the place where we get our food, most importantly, which I feel like that's the part about soil that most people readily accept and understand is that it's the medium where we grow food and where plants grow. But obviously, the role that it plays in in the ecosystem is way bigger than just food. And over time it's gotten more and more exciting to learn. I always tell people that, you know, basically at this point, I've been studying soils in one form or another for almost 30 years. And I still am excited to find new things to learn all the time.

Speaker 3 12:57

It's really cool to still hear the excitement in your voice about the topic. And also, it strikes me just what an interdisciplinary topic soil is, because it has all of the things you just described about the amazing sustenance of life on earth in all these different ways and biodiversity. And then also it does come up against a lot of human factors, whether it's war, land degradation, climate change, it's quite the integrator.

Speaker 5 13:27

Indeed, indeed. It is definitely in many ways the great equalizer, right? All life comes from soil, eventually we'll get back to soil. Uh and there's a popular soil scientist who used to work at University of Wisconsin and Madison who used to like to say, we are all just temporarily not soil. Not soil.

Speaker 4 13:52

For a brief moment, we're not soil. But we were soil would be back to being soil eventually. That's a great it's an interesting way to think about it, right?

Speaker 3 14:03

So just incredibly exciting. It never gets old. So you've done a lot of public education, public scholarship. Does your excitement about the science drive that, or does your interest in making a difference and moving policy drive your activities in public scholarship?

Speaker 5 14:21

I would say it's a mix. I love soil. I'm excited about soil. I'm happy to talk about soil with anybody who would listen to me. But at the same time, I think it's extremely important that as scientists, we are communicating with the community that we're part of about at least what are we studying and why, right? Not everybody might have the same level of scientific training as we do in the specific field. So they may not be able to follow the detailed, intricate things we're studying, but that's not necessarily what's important, right? But at least getting a deeper appreciation for why that is important and how the scientific process allows us to discover things, new things all the time that we didn't know. Some of them help expand the frontiers of knowledge, if you will, keep pushing the envelope. Others translate into advances in technology or solutions for society in one way or another. But all of them are incredibly important from an education perspective, from a perspective of getting a better appreciation for why science is so important for society and hopefully should be guiding policy, informing policy whenever appropriate. The other part that's important, though, in my opinion, and why I think especially this part is important when we talk about science communication and its value with academics in particular, is regardless of really what type of institution we work in, almost all of us rely on public resources to support our science. And if we are going to ask the public year in and year out to support us, to give the resources that we need to pursue the science, I think we have an obligation to make sure that the society, the public, can understand why we're asking these questions. And we have a responsibility to bring the public along with us. And we can't just expect people to blindly trust what we're doing and, you know, just give us the money and resources and access to all sorts of things that would we would need to do our job. I think it has to be a two-way process. And I think when we are not engaging with the public and the policymakers in the way that we should, we all get to see the ramifications of that. It doesn't help the science, it doesn't help policy, it definitely doesn't help society, and definitely, you know, does not help the next generation of leaders in science and community that we want to be informed citizens. So for the benefit of everybody around, for many of these reasons, I've dedicated a significant part of my career to science communication, public outreach and education. And I keep hoping that more and more scientists would join us.

Speaker 3 16:54

I know not everybody can do it, but those who can like you said, not everybody is going to be good at it and is going to be able to speak to a more general audience. I'm sure you've encountered people who in your career are probably not the best spokespeople, but it's a labor of love because uh, as you say, it takes away from your day-to-day science, but it's so important to do if it is something that you do have the capacity to do. Exactly. Yep. So have you had any great mentors that you can identify who have helped you along in your career, either in the science or in the public communication or in your policy work? Is there anybody who you feel like you could point to who brought you to where you are or helped inspire you?

Speaker 5 17:41

Oh, yeah. I've been really fortunate to have amazing mentors, not just in my STEM training career, but also on a personal side. I mentioned my parents earlier, their experience and the way they have pursued education and the value of education that they've shared, not just with us, but with their entire community and how education has been able to uplift not just their lives and the lives of their family, but the community as a whole, was probably one of the first good examples that I've had. And they were my early role models and they remain one of my best role models in life. And then, you know, at a personal level, I met again an old friend from my days at undergrad at University of Osmara when I was at Berkeley, who ended up being my boyfriend then, is now my husband. And he's another academic, also a soil scientist from Eritrea. My husband's name is Tam Red. And Tam Ride was one of these incredible, you know, supportive husband and partner, but also incredible peer mentor to me over the years, especially when things got a little difficult. It's been just a godsent to have him by my side. Same I could say about friends that I made along the way. Some of my friends from grad school are still my closest friends, and we've supported one another, and they've been there for me through all sorts of things, even as our careers have moved from way past grad student to, you know, getting jobs and postdocs, going through tenure and all sorts of other things. Even when I worked in government, just having those kinds of supportive peer mentors and friends was amazingly important. But then on the academic and STEM side of things, I also point to my three PhD advisors that were just the most incredible humans who were able to show me that you could at the same time be a good human and a good scientist and incredibly supportive person. And I think it was really, really helpful to have people like that in my career early on, in particular. People not just whose careers that I admired, their achievements and their careers, but also who they are as human beings. And that was just incredibly important over the years for me and many, many other people. I mean, a good friend of mine likes to say that a career in science or in the academy is like a team sport. You don't get to do this alone. And you have an incredibly supportive team of people that are behind you, that are with you along the way as you move forward.

Speaker 3 20:16

And I've been fortunate to have that. Yeah, people think about having a mentor, but really it's better to think about having a constellation of mentors. Indeed.

Speaker 5 20:27

A network of mentors, a supportive network of people that are there for you, and in turn, you could be there for them when you needed to. That's really to me one of the biggest, the best things that I've had going in my career is having those those kinds of people and support that just when you need it, it's there. And we all need support from time to time. I think that's the key, is that and not all the time, but every once in a while, we all need support. We all need trusted people we can have conversations with and ask questions that we may not feel safe or okay to ask. And it makes a world of difference when we have trusted people in our circles like that.

Speaker 3 21:15

Can you talk a little bit more about your husband and how do the two of you, how have you navigated these two academic careers, and you have two children? Yep. Uh, how have you done that? What's been your strategy for both having these very successful careers and managing to have a family life on top of that?

Speaker 5 21:37

Yeah. So Teamrat and I were friends in undergrad. We both did our first degrees in the same department, a civil science department at the University of Osmar. So we were very good friends for many years. Separately, we both came to the US after we finished our undergrads. And then some years later, Teamrat went to Utah State and completed his PhD. There, then came to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory first as a postdoc and then rather quickly rose through the ranks to become a career scientist in just a couple of years at the lab. And at the time when he came to Berkeley, I was in doing my PhD. So I'd already gone through Michigan State and came to Berkeley. But as I mentioned, I had multiple PhD mentors, and one of them was a scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Happens to be in the exact same department that Tamra was working at the lab. And so we met again, and after reconnecting there, we got to be even closer friends. And one thing led to another. Over some years, we got married and we had our first child actually when we were at Berkeley after we got married. And when we were making decisions about where do we go for our career, we tried to keep as open mind as possible. Knowing, of course, especially we're talking about now, this is uh 2006, uh, seven, eight. And so almost 20 years ago, it wasn't the easiest thing to accomplish to get two tenure track positions at the same time. So we decided the best thing we can do to give ourselves as wide field of possibilities and the biggest chance possible is to pursue funding that would allow us to stay in our positions as much as possible. So at the time, Teamrat was a scientist, I was a postdoc when this was going on when we're going through the job search. And we both managed to get enough funding that would keep us into our in our positions at Berkeley for a bit so that we could explore as many positions. And it wasn't easy, right? They could make it sound very easy, like, oh, we just got funding. No, I mean, we tried a lot of times, of course, to secure this funding. You don't succeed in getting grants and things typically the first time, right? But we started this as early as we possibly could and failed enough times that we learned enough lessons to eventually succeed and get the resources that we needed to fund my postdoc and his position at the at the lab. And then when we applied for jobs too, and it took a while, right? The first year we applied, the year I was finishing my PhD, there weren't really too many options that we could even consider seriously. The second year, there were some options, but it was gonna be hard to make it work for the two of us. And we decided we had enough money just to try one more round. And so we waited for the next academic job cycle and we applied. Then we had multiple options, thankfully. And at the time, you also have to appreciate that I've had at least a year and a half or so in my postdoc, almost two years at the time. Teamrat was a scientist. So as time went on, we were both becoming more and more established scientists. We had a lot more record to demonstrate our independence and the quality of the work that we were doing, a lot more funding to our name to demonstrate that we're in a good trajectory to succeed as independent scientists, which is what everybody in the academic job market is looking for. Worked with a variety of different mentees to also demonstrate that we can mentor folks effectively, had teaching experience. So all of it that you could imagine is needed to help boost the faculty job candidate. We had over time, the longer this went on, the more of that record we had to demonstrate. And so we were able to get a few options and made a decision to come to Merced from the options that we had, because we felt like this worked better for both our positions. And we felt incredible support from the faculty that were in the department that was trying to hire us here. The dean that hired us, we still talk about her. In fact, this morning we were talking about her because, especially for that time, she was unbelievably open-minded, supportive, practical. And not only was she willing to come up with two positions for us, but she was also incredibly supportive to tell us that do not look at this as somebody's doing you a charity. If we didn't think we wanted both of you, we wouldn't be hiring both of you. This is a huge investment for this campus, but one that I'm confident that I'm making because I'm getting two great scientists to come and join the school. And so she made sure that we did not shortchange ourselves. You know, in in one of these specific conversations we were remembering today was so they they decided to hire me. They came up with a second position, interviewed my husband. He had an even incredible record than me. So they decided quickly that yes, they want to hire him. So when we were negotiating, I think there was a little bit of fear in us, especially in my husband, that they're already coming up with a second position. We can't possibly be asking for big startups and things. But her approach was different in that she was advising us: I'm hiring two independent faculty. I want both of you to succeed. I want both of you to pause and think about what would help set you up for success. And that's what I want to get for you all. And just fantastic.

Speaker 3 26:57

And it's it can make such a huge difference how people in these management roles and deans can how they speak to people they're hiring can make such a huge difference in their in their trajectory.

Speaker 5 27:11

And I mean, just to give stuff worth as I said, like we were talking about her just this morning because we somehow remember the startup conversation, and we were both saying, even 20 years later, it's still an incredible thing to hear from the dean that's trying to hire you, right? Which I wish that wasn't the case. But we were fortunate to have an incredibly supportive department faculty, and our interaction with her made it clear that this is where we would be supported and we would both pursue the careers that we really wanted to. And we've been fortunate. And it's nice because I almost always feel like we had our own built-in support system when we came to this brand new campus.

Speaker 3 27:52

What's really amazing about your story also is just I think it's important for listeners and for young people pursuing careers in science to not expect it to happen overnight. Like you said, you have to fail a few times and you have to kind of let it simmer and develop your skills and be you become this whole package, then is very hireable. And sometimes people, you know, feel like, well, I'm just gonna bow out because, you know, nobody wanted me right away. But it does take some time. And and and oftentimes you have to make a few compromises along the way in order to get to a situation that works well, not just for yourself, but for the whole set of circumstances in your life as well.

Speaker 5 28:39

Yeah. And and I think, as I'm sure you know well, that's true pretty much of an entire career in STEM, that any kind of career that people would have. There's a lot of times where you're failing. Sometimes, you know, when I was an associate dean for grad division, I used to teach a professional development course for all grad students on our campus. And we do CV workshops there. And one of the things I used to want to remind them, always used to remind them, is that the CVs do not tell a complete story, right? If only we listed how many times we failed in that CV, our CVs would be, wow, so long. There's just no way to convey how much you struggle with a CV. And it's really important to not get this impression when we see CVs of people whose careers we admire that somehow they've accomplished all these things and and we haven't yet. So especially when you're early, it's helpful to remember that if they've accomplished that much, it easily means, at least, at least the way I think about it, they've failed at least that many times, if not more. A lot more, probably in some cases.

Speaker 3 29:46

That's also important to remember that they're X number of years ahead. That you can't expect to look like that at at any given time that you have to think about where they were back, you know, several years prior.

Speaker 2 29:59

Yeah.

Speaker 3 30:00

Yep. And so how, just on a more logistics basis, how did you and Teamrat separate division of labor and child raising and what were your strategies for both being successful?

Speaker 5 30:12

We were never terribly good at division of labor. We just tried to step in. If one of us needs support, the other one will step in. And sometimes we would both just, you know, just get super tired, even though we could have helped ourselves by taking turns instead of trying to do everything together. But I think what was important and what is really, really important to remember is that you don't get to have the kind of careers that we both have unless you have supportive people in your life, especially supportive partner. He's willing to step in in my case, anytime really. I need him. Any and before I even know I need him, he's happy to step in. And oftentimes I almost feel like he can foresee when things are getting to a stressful level and happily step in and not keep score for stepping in, not make it stressful, just be understanding of one another. That's been the gift that continues to give for us. And, you know, we've also benefited, of course, by having academic careers that allow us to be flexible. So, for example, now our kids are uh 19 and 15, but pretty much their entire life, basically, when they were in school, we were academics. And so we had the good fortune of being in a system that allows us a little bit of flexibility. We never schedule our courses in the same day. So our teaching schedules are always staggered so that if one of us needs to be home for the kids, or one of us to go take the kids to this after school activity or this thing or that music lessons or sports or whatever, or doctor's appointments, or just stay home with kids, there's always one of us that has a flexibility in their schedule.

Speaker 3 31:56

I mean, that's exactly what my husband and I do also. And and I think one thing that's nice about two academic careers, even though people talk about how hard it's gonna be, but there is an understanding. Like if I have a proposal deadline, my husband knows he's gonna give me space because he knows he'll have a proposal deadline. Exactly the next month. And so there's some certain understanding. On the flip side, you kind of could always talk about work and never leave it uh Oh 100%.

Speaker 5 32:28

We're all we're g guilty of that too a lot. And I almost feel like our kids never had a chance to just have like just something that is free of work, right? And science injects our kids. I'm sure your kids do that too. Random conversations at dinner go towards science and they start rolling their eyes and they can explain the science of this too.

Speaker 4 32:50

Right? Which is it's fine.

Speaker 3 32:52

It's a you know, but I grew up in in a household with two science parents who worked together also and knew each other's work, and we made a declaration as kids, no shop talk at the dinner table.

Speaker 4 33:05

Indeed. We tried, but I um I'm willing to admit that we fail at that all the time. Aaron Ross Powell They must know a lot about soil science. Probably more than they want to know.

Speaker 3 33:19

Do you feel like there are ways that being a woman has positively impacted your career?

Speaker 5 33:25

Aaron Ross Powell There are. And the one that stands out to me is, and and we talk about this often with my friends and collaborators and my husband, who's also good friends with some of them at this point, that women academics in particular have these incredibly supportive networks way more than some of the men in our lives do. And it's a different kind of supportive networks. Not that they don't have incredible mentors and other supportive people in their careers, but it's different, right? I feel like the networks and the connections that we've had have come in handy and been incredibly helpful in so many ways. And so every once in a while, when my friends and I, especially my really good friend Erica at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who I believe, you know, because we were all in the side.

Speaker 4 34:17

We were all the same.

Speaker 5 34:20

We always talk about she's also married to another academic and talk often about, you know, my husband likes to remind me that the kind of relationship and that we have and the way we support one another with Erica is just unreal. To him, it's like even when you have supportive network with men, they just don't work the same. And they're a little different, at least most of the time. And I feel like I've definitely benefited and I've seen it benefit a number of my other colleagues and friends over the years. Um, that's one that, yeah, I mean, that we could talk about a lot of things that are different about, you know, overall, kind of generally men and women in the academy. But regardless of how hard our jobs are, I think being able to lean on your network and work with people you've been friends with for a long time, choose who you want to work with. Those kinds of advan advantages that we have is priceless.

Speaker 3 35:15

I feel like there's some sort of analogy in there with soils and uh horizontal networks or so.

Speaker 4 35:23

Maybe the woman had just figured this out better.

Speaker 3 35:27

Are there other ways that your own experience and personal identity, do you think, have shaped who you are as a scientist and have affected your career in positive ways?

Speaker 5 35:38

Yeah, I mean, so I'm a black woman in earth science. There aren't a whole lot of people who look like me in the field, right? And, you know, in some ways, obviously, that's a challenge. In other ways, I think it's been the reason why I had dedicated a good amount of my career, and probably one of the most important reasons why I agreed to do the DOE job is because of, you know, how I've seen that play out in my own career and the desire to just not let that be the norm in whatever we can change to help fix that. So I feel like I do I wish I didn't have to experience some of the things that I did. Yeah, of course. But it has also helped shape how I see the systems that operate and where we fail. I'm I love being an academic, and I would not trade my academic career for anything, but I also have seen it through a different lens, and that has allowed me to think about where are the things that we could change? We could make it easier for folks. And so, in many ways, I think, of course, who I am as a person and my identity has had a huge influence on why I choose to spend as much time as I have in my career to make the academy and STEM careers in general more welcoming to people from different backgrounds and extraction.

Speaker 3 36:57

Accessible presentation matters so much. Big time, big time. Yeah. And it sounds like you take really seriously this idea of needing to give back both through the public scholarship work and also through making sure to take the advantages that you've had and be able to share them with others and be that role model.

Speaker 5 37:18

Yeah, because I, you know, I through my own personal history and background, I'm able to see how much difference chance and access to opportunities makes in one's life and career, right? So if I can help it, I want to make sure that nobody is deprived of that.

Speaker 3 37:35

Yeah, that's really great. What are the ways that you treat yourself? What brings you joy outside of work? How do you maintain your body and your spirit? What do you do to keep that balance?

Speaker 5 37:48

I think a few different things, but the ones that I love and cherish and do try to do as much as possible is spend as much time with my family as possible. Especially just I'm Eritrean in our culture, food is a love language. Cook for my family and with my family, teach my kids how to do that stuff. Cook, bake, and just spend that time together and then travel together. I've been fortunate over my life, even way before I came to the US, that I was able to travel a bit and appreciated how much I learn every time I visit someplace new and experience new things with the people I love. And so we try to do as much of that as possible as a family.

Speaker 3 38:32

I've noticed when I followed you a bit on social media and the way you you refer to your children is your blessings. And I think that's so beautiful. And it sounds like that is really the way you feel like they're the blessings.

Speaker 5 38:45

They are. That's just what they are, in my opinion. It's that these two incredible, amazing, amazing humans that I'm fortunate to be a mom to. And and I try to cherish that as much as possible because nothing in life is guaranteed, right? But the one thing that I know is I'm fortunate to have these two and be able to raise them with an incredible partner. And there's just nothing other than a blessing, in my opinion, that could describe that. That's wonderful.

unknown 39:12

Yeah.

Speaker 3 39:13

What is either a piece of advice you've received along your journey as a scientist that you'd like to pass along, or do you just have one piece of advice to listeners that you might share that is relevant to suing a career in science?

Speaker 5 39:29

I'll go back to something I mentioned earlier. One of my good friends says science careers in the academy are like a team sport. That is a message I wish I knew and appreciated early on, even though I was fortunate to have a nice network of people. I don't think I thought about it in that way from the beginning and early on, as this is something that I've tried to instill in my own students, mentees, other students and early career researchers that I interact with is think of your career. Uh, of course, you want to learn as much and develop an incredible record. But at the same time, it's really, really important that you're cultivating and nurturing a supportive network of people that will be there for you when you need support. And remembering again that everybody needs support at one point and another. And that support network is gonna make an incredible amount of difference at so many turns your career and your life takes. And thinking about that, being intentional about it, and not just intentional about surrounding yourself with the type of people you would like to learn from and get the support from, but also cultivating those relationships over years is so, so incredibly important and one that should not take a backseat as we're thinking about growing our careers.

Speaker 3 40:48

Yeah, it seems also just being intentional about having it be in certain categories, like there's technical support, there's personal support, there's career support in terms of learning how to do pursue opportunities. So there's a lot of different categories that those kinds of support can fall into.

Speaker 5 41:07

Indeed. And I think it's so important. So for many years, I was part of a group called the Earth Science Women's Network, and I was on the leadership board, as were a number of my close friends, and the network ESWN at some point work with a group called the Faculty Development and Diversity Group, Carrie Ann Rockmore's group, to develop uh who has developed this mentor map. And what I've always liked about her mentor map exercise is how you really need to think about your career and the mentoring that you need as this networked approach. You're in the middle and you have many, many needs. Sometimes you need people who will give you substantive feedback, whether it's on the technical work that you're doing or your writing or whatever it is, right? You sometimes need people who will support you in your professional development and be part of your broader intellectual community. Sometimes you need people to be real role models. They may not necessarily be the same people that you also want to mentor you and sponsor you for different opportunities, but you definitely need those kinds of support. You definitely also need people who will open doors for you and provide you with access to opportunities, right? People who you would need to be accountable for, for the things that really, really matter, right? Who you want to be, you want to make sure to check in to make that you're following things through and you're doing the kind of things you're doing you need to do to advance in your career. And then you also need people who are your safe space and people who provide you with emotional support. There's a lot of different needs and support that we need as human beings, and thinking about it in terms of all these different needs that we have and who in our lives can be there or can provide that support is so incredibly important. Even if under the best conditions, the one mentor that we have, you know, PhD advisor or other, can never be enough to fill in all of these needs that we have as human beings, even under the most amazing kind of mentorship arrangement. And so really important to think about how we carefully think of who's in our network and how we cultivate these relationships over time is so important. Yeah.

Speaker 3 43:27

And honestly, that's one of the reasons I started this podcast is so that people can learn and hear that exact type of advice from a variety of different women who have been really successful in their careers. And maybe somebody doesn't have a person available to tell them that or access to the opportunity. So it's nice to be able to put this out there and hope that people can hear it and learn from so many amazing women. My last question is always if you weren't a scientist, what would you do with your

Speaker 5 44:01

It's interesting because you know I probably would have been a lawyer. I was fascinated always by my dad's career as a lawyer and a law professor. And I love learning as much as possible about the legal principles and things he was teaching and working on. And I love the entire practice that he had and the way it operated. So I probably well, yeah, very likely would have been a lawyer, is my thinking. Yeah.

Speaker 2 44:28

It's interesting to see the variety of answers to get to this question. Indeed. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Asmeret. It's really been a joy and pleasure to chat with you and um likewise. You're the best. Thank you. Thank you, Karen.

Speaker 4 44:43

Appreciate that.

Speaker 44:44

Take care. Thanks for tuning in to the Scientess Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow on your favorite podcast app. It helps more curious minds like yours discover the show. You can find additional bonus content and make a donation to help support the show on our website, www.scientess.org. That's S-C-I-E-N-T-E-S-S. You can also follow us on Instagram at @Scientesspodcast. We'd love to hear from you with comments, questions, or suggestions for future interview subjects. Drop us a line at scientesspod@gmail.com. The Scientess Podcast is supported in part by the Seattle branch of AAUW, the American Association of University Women, supporting women and girls in the Seattle area since 1908. Note that this podcast is not affiliated with the University of Washington, and the views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the University of Washington. We'll catch you in the next episode.