This is Part 2 of a look at the evolution of women in volcanology, especially at the US Geological Survey. You can read Part 1 here.
A Hawaiian eruption was an unexpected destination for Alexa Van Eaton. This was her second stint in the USGS. She had previously worked at CVO as a postdoctoral researcher and felt she didn’t really fit in there as an early-career female scientist. The mostly over-40 male staff of CVO was nothing new to her. Her professors in Florida and her Ph.D. advisor in New Zealand were men as well.
Van Eaton decided that before she committed to volcano research, she wanted to work with a woman. She took her NSF postdoctoral funding to Amanda Clarke, a world-renowned volcanologist at Arizona State. Van Eaton didn’t internalize at first the strong gender biases in her undergraduate and graduate academic experiences, thinking “it was the water we were swimming in.” Yet, some of those early experiences made her wonder if she wanted to spend a career working in such an environment.
Van Eaton’s experience resonated with Michelle Coombs, the current SIC at the Alaska Volcano Observatory. During her college years in geology, she thought the predominance of men in the Earth Sciences “was just how life was, that professors were male.” Not until working as a field assistant for USGS geologist Judy Fierstein did she realize how right her perceptions were. “Judy said ‘it is great to be in the field with a woman because I’ve hardly ever been in the field with a woman.”
