Cathy Wilson

Where is Our Water Going to Come From?
 

I am a “Baby Boomer” who grew up in California in the 1950’s and 60’s. My neighborhood was swarming with kids, the Beatles were HOT, I had a pair of white go-go boots and my favorite toys were Barbie dolls, roller skates, my bicycle and my pogo stick. At that time I liked math, and my 6th grade teacher, Mr. Cross, encouraged me in this area even though math wasn’t considered something girls would pursue in school or as a job back then. Science didn’t interest me much, but it shaped my lifestyle through the gadgets of the first electronic revolution: portable transistor radios, 45 rpm record players and black and white television sets; as well as the nuclear arms race between Russia and the USA. I don’t remember practicing fire alarms at school, but baby boomers remember “duck and cover” drills in preparation for nuclear attacks! I had no idea that the nuclear age began in New Mexico, and I never dreamed that someday I would be an environmental scientist at the birthplace of the atomic bomb…
 
By the early 1970’s I was a teenager in a small town in Connecticut. Rivers and lakes across the America had been dammed for hydroelectric power and used as industrial and domestic sewers while the US economy grew rapidly. The fish in Lake Erie were either dead or toxic and Ohio's Cuyahoga River was so polluted it had burst into flames. The “environmental movement” was growing quickly. I was passionate about the environment and helped to organize a demonstration in our town to coincide with the first ever “Earth Day” in 1970. The nationwide event aimed to put pressure on President Richard Nixon to sign the Clean Water Act, which he finally did in 1972. Around this time I discovered that I enjoyed math, chemistry and physics; mainly due to two outstanding teachers, Mr. Law and Mr. Pietrowski. But I still hadn’t linked my passion for the environment with my growing interest in math and science.
 
I also loved the arts, and after graduating from high school I moved back to California to study theatrical design in college. During my second year in college I took a calculus class in order to fulfill a requirement, and to my surprise, I loved it! Once again, I had an inspiring teacher, Professor Lenore Blum, who was a both a world renowned mathematician and an early advocate of programs to increase the participation of girls and women in mathematics. That class set my professional life on a new course. I changed my major and graduated from a Mills College with a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics.
 
My degree in math opened many doors, including a great job, and later, acceptance into one of the top Geology PhD programs in the country at the University of California Berkeley. At the time, I didn’t really understand what a PhD was. My Mom was a high school graduate, and her Dad was a zinc miner. My Dad graduated from college, but his Dad made cut shingles from timber in logging camps. I definitely did not come from an academic heritage, but I had a friend who was getting a PhD in Anthropology and thought, “if she can do it, then why not me?” I had just finished a book with an interesting description of the geologic evolution of the Western US, and wanted to get into a profession that took me outdoors more, so geology seemed like a good fit. At Berkeley, I had another great mentor, Professor William Dietrich. With his guidance and a lot of help from fellow graduate students, I set up and carried out field experiments in the coastal hills overlooking the Pacific Ocean just north of San Francisco. I used the data from experiments along with my mathematical skills to create a computer model to predict what caused the destructive, fast moving landslides called debris flows that occurred in California during big rain storms.
 
After completing my PhD I was offered a job at a government research organization called CSIRO in Canberra, Australia and moved there with my new husband, Kent, who also studied geology at Berkeley. We lived and worked in Australia for eleven years. During that time I travelled to every corner of the country working on projects that used science and mathematical models to help foresters, farmers and ranchers improve their land management practices to preserve the ecology and other environmental values of rivers and streams. Both of our children were born and raised in Australia and have many great memories of the odd wildlife (kangaroos, cockatoos, possums and kookaburras), the dramatic coastlines and beaches of Southern New South Wales and the spectacular, multi-colored marine life of the Great Barrier Reef.
 
In 2000 we decided to move back to America and chose to live and work in beautiful Northern New Mexico at Los Alamos National Laboratory. I now work on understanding and predicting the impacts of climate change and energy development on water resources. I work with scientists from all over the country, and the world, on this global challenge and recently travelled to Alaska (where I watched a grizzly bear catch salmon for her cubs) and Brussels, Belgium (where I saw medieval buildings and ate lots of chocolate) to give seminars about my research. I think I have one of the best jobs in the world, and know that I was fortunate to have so many wonderful mentors who made math and science fun and exciting for me. Thank you for inviting me to Café Scientifique, and I hope I will share some of my passion for science and water issues with you.