Dr. Eliot Atekwana began his scientific career researching landfill leachate retention for his
undergraduate senior thesis. The project kindled an interest in hydrogeology and geochemistry
that ultimately led him to complete a Ph.D. thesis investigating the influence of a Kalamazoo,
Michigan landfill on regional groundwater. As an undergraduate, Eliot met fellow geologist
Estella Nkwate (now Atekwana). The two married, started a family, navigated the challenging
academic “two-body-problem”, and began a highly productive scholarly partnership that has
spanned multiple disciplines, continents, and decades. Drs. E.A. Atekwana (yes, they share the
same initials) are the Power Couple of biogeophysics.
Eliot is hard to pin down as a scientist because his research interests and involvement are so
varied. He is a stable isotope geochemist. He is a hydrogeologist. He is a biogeophysicist. He is
a geomicrobiologist. He studies the geochemistry of hot springs in rift basins, and carbon
isotopes in landfill leachate plumes, acid mine drainage, and in microbial redox processes. He
developed what is now a standard method for dissolved inorganic carbon measurements. Some
of his recent projects have resulted in papers on everything from riverine carbon isotope
evolution in the Okavango Delta, to acid mine drainage, models of biofilm growth, carbonate
spring isotopes, nitrate contamination at a home in Oklahoma, shale permeability, and even the
structure of the Malawi Rift. Although he is a Jack-of-all-trades Earth scientist who brings an
analytical approach to any problem he engages with and is respected for his versatility and
expertise in many fields, his core expertise is stable isotope geochemistry, especially carbon
isotope evolution in aqueous systems.
He is also a dedicated mentor of graduate students and undergraduates whose students
appreciate his commitment to their projects and development as scientists (rumor has it that he
asks a lot of really hard questions), as well as his sense of humor.
Eliot and his wife Estella have three children and a lot of stories and advice about navigating
academia as a dual-career couple, having both survived many moves and lived apart for years
as a family with young children before finally negotiating positions in the same place. The two
enjoy working closely together, which has led to important interdisciplinary connections and
established them as key founders of the field of Biogeophysics. However, their collaboration has
also presented challenges with getting proper recognition as individual scientists. The scientific
versatility of both Eliot and Estella means that people who do not know them well often credit
Estella for Eliot’s work, and vice-versa. One strategy Eliot has found to combat this is
maintaining distinct lines of research in addition to his collaborative work with Estella.