Patty Standring

Patty is a 2021-2023 student representative for the GSA Marine and Coastal Geoscience Division

What is your professional role?

I am a 2^nd-year PhD student studying paleoceanography at the University of Texas at Austin.

What aspects of marine or coastal geoscience do you work on (or have you worked on in the past)?

My current PhD research involves analysis of deep-sea marine sediments from drilling cores and looking for microfossils called foraminifera. Foraminifera (sometimes called forams) are single-celled organisms that live throughout the ocean and are used as paleoclimate and paleoceanographic proxies. Forams make their shells out of calcite from elements in the seawater they live in. After they die, their shells are incorporated into seafloor sediments and preserved creating these tiny little time capsules for ancient ocean conditions. By analyzing the isotopic composition of the shells, we can learn about long-term climate and ocean circulation changes, which helps us predict how the climate and oceans may change in the future as the climate continues to warm. 

For my undergraduate research, I used foraminifera from coastal ecosystems to study how sea level changed in the middle and late Holocene along the Texas coast. Forams are sensitive to changes in ocean temperatures, salinity, and food availability, so as an environment changes in one or all of those parameters, for example from sea-level rise, the foram species living in that environment will change. By looking at changes in foram populations in a sediment core through time, we can determine how the environment changed over time, and infer sea level changes from that.

How did you first become interested in science?

I have always been interested in science, but after graduating high school I did not have a way to pay for college, so I joined the military. I spent 10 years in the Air Force as a Dari Linguist (Dari is one of the primary languages spoken in Afghanistan). By the time my second enlistment was up, I decided it was time to do something different, and with the GI Bill I was free to pursue my interest in science. 

Growing up in southern California, I was familiar with earthquakes and the damage they can cause. While I was deployed in Afghanistan in 2011, there was an earthquake in a northern province of the country that completely destroyed an entire village – many lives were lost. I recall thinking that an earthquake of similar magnitude in California would not have resulted in so many fatalities and so much destruction. For a country that has already experienced so much loss, I felt particularly saddened by the fact that limited infrastructure and emergency services compounded the loss for these people. It forced me to reconsider what my efforts were accomplishing in the military, and whether or not there were better things I could be doing for people. After that experience, I began looking at alternative careers beyond the military. 

In 2015, I separated from the military and moved to Texas, hoping to get my bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas where I would study earthquake science. I enrolled at UT after completing some pre-requisite courses at Austin Community College. While completing my undergraduate degree, I participated in the Marine Geology and Geophysics Field Course, where I was introducing to marine science and foraminifera. After that course, my academic trajectory changed, and I knew I wanted to study paleoclimate and paleoceanography.

Who have been your greatest mentors?

Throughout my military career, I had many mentors and supervisors, some of them good, and others from whom I learned exactly how not to mentor someone. By far, the best mentor and leader I encountered was (at the time) Technical Sergeant Jeff Edens. He was my first Flight Chief and one of the most encouraging people I’ve ever met. We were starting a new mission in our unit, and I was one of the new airmen to join the mission and help set it up. It was very stressful for everyone involved because there was a lot of pressure to make the mission work. Sgt Edens was a calming presence throughout the process and was a master of making people feel like they were capable of excelling without explicitly saying so. I was lucky enough to attend (now) Senior Master Sgt Edens’ retirement ceremony several years ago in Norfolk, Virginia. I was not the only airmen that he had mentored who showed up to the ceremony. He had a positive impact on so many people. 

As a veteran, it is not easy finding a mentor, especially when most of the people I encounter are not veterans and probably do not have much familiarity with the military. I struggled a lot as an undergraduate student to find people I could relate to. All of my peers were much younger (by more than a decade in many cases) and came from very different backgrounds than me. When I participated in the Marine Geology and Geophysics Field Course, I was introduced to Dr. Chris Lowery, who is a Research Scientist at UT’s Institute for Geophysics. Dr. Lowery seemed to have many of the qualities I would look for in a mentor – he was encouraging and had a positive attitude towards research, even and especially when there were obstacles. His values and opinions on creating a more welcoming and inclusive geosciences community are what I was looking for in a mentor, and I feel very fortunate to have worked with him as an undergrad and to be working with him still as a PhD student. 

Although I have experience mentoring people in the military, I am still learning how to be a good mentor, and the above individuals are who I strive to emulate.

What advice would you give to someone just starting out in this field?

Be kind to yourself, especially when you are just starting research and academic studies. You will make mistakes, but you will be a better scientist by learning from those mistakes. Do not be afraid to reach out to professors and researchers whose work interests you. 

If you are an undergraduate student, I encourage you to get involved in research early on. It will make your academic studies much more interesting, you will gain practical experience, and you will likely figure out more quickly what you want your career to be.