Student Opportunities at Illinois Water 2014

One of the biggest reasons we started holding Illinois Water conferences on the University of Illinois campus is because it's easier for students to attend. In addition to all the talks and plenaries, we’ve created several opportunities uniquely for students. We hope you’ll take advantage of them in October.

Poster Session: The student poster session will take place on the evening of October 14. Students will have an opportunity to present their research to fellow conference attendees and compete for best poster awards. The deadline for poster abstracts is July 9, 2014. You can submit a poster abstract through this form.

Registration Scholarships: If you have submitted a poster or presentation, you are eligible to submit an application for a registration scholarship. While we try to keep the registration costs as low as possible, sometimes low isn’t low enough where you are a full time student. And if you’re not presenting, you’re still welcome to apply for a scholarship, although we try to accommodate presenting students first. If you only want to attend one session or wander through the posters, don’t worry, you don’t need to register at all. Do stop at the registration table and say “hi,” though. We love to know who attended the conference, and we could probably get you a free pen.  

Water Careers Panel: As you know by now, we here at IWRC love talking about water jobs, so of course we organize a career panel every Water Conference. This year we’ve even invited a Water Jobs alum to join our panel and tell you about the joys of water planning. Other guest speakers may include an aquatic ecologist at a nonprofit, a stormwater engineer, and a college professor. The panel will take place during lunch on Wednesday, October 15 and include lots of time for questions.      

Water Jobs: The Art of Water

Today on WaterJobs we welcome Chicago-based artist Lindsay Olson to discuss her latest project: Manufactured River. Manufactured River examines wastewater treatment through conceptual art, much of it involving textiles. When we first saw Lindsay’s work through Twitter, we thought she was a perfect candidate for WaterJobs. Not only does she blend science and art, but she also does so in an effort to draw people’s attention to the value of clean water! Lindsay studied fine arts at Columbia College Chicago and has used her work as a means to build community understanding about her local police force (Tools of the Trade). When not creating, Lindsay enjoys canoeing, and told me that she and her husband “haul our canoe ‘The Leaky Cauldron’ everywhere we travel, including Nova Scotia and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We even braved canoeing on the Illinois River and dodged commercial traffic until we came to our senses.”  

Filamentous Bacteria Nostocoida Limicola by Lindsay Olson

When did you become interested in using your artwork to bring attention to watershed management?

Fourteen years ago I was painting traditional, impressionistic waterscapes and focused mainly on idealized waterscapes. I deliberately edited out parking lots, electrical wires, buildings and wanted to portray a more rural looking waterway.

How did you become interested in wastewater treatment, specifically? Was there a triggering event, a moment of inspiration, etc.?

I had a defining moment one day while my husband and I were canoeing on the Chicago Canal.  We passed a SEPA station (Side Stream Elevated Pool Aeration) and this was not like any ordinary fountain I had seen. The             structure nagged at me. I wanted to know why someone would build such a structure. It was at that moment that I felt compelled to learn the real story about water use in a crowded, urban area.

I have to admit that often, as an artist, ignorance is my best friend. I had no idea that learning who built the SEPA station and why would lead me on such a huge technical and artistic adventure.

Growing up, I was always interested in the creative end of things. Like many creative people, I was intimidated by math and science. (If I had known then I could learn science by making art, I would have been much more interested in         science classes.) I knew if I wanted to portray the real story of water, I had to roll up my sleeves do my homework, literally!  I attended seminars, talked to scientists, engineers and operators, and read lots of books and articles. I did not want to just portray the surface details of wastewater treatment. I wanted my art to capture the science and the spirit of the industry.

Your work shows a broad knowledge about the science and technology of wastewater treatment. Do you secretly run a wastewater treatment plant in addition to being an artist, or how did you pursue that knowledge?

Thank you very much for a lovely compliment! I learned about wastewater treatment a number of ways. Early on in the project I had the good fortune to meet several key people. Dick Lanyon, retired Executive Director of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Great Chicago took a personal interest in me and the project and helped explain complex engineering processes in layman’s terms. He also took me under his wing and suggested ways to get the project out into the community. He introduced me to the Illinois Water Environment Association and Water Environment Federation officials so that the work was shown to water professionals. As a result of my participation in WATERCON 2013, I made connections in the Quad Cities, and last month I met with arts administrators, environmentalists, and water professionals to create programming around the art show. We are working on bringing this together some time in 2014.

Also, I am also delighted to be showing “Manufactured River” at the Water Environment Federation Technical Event and Conference in Chicago October 5-9.  

Crawling Ciliates Aspidisca by Lindsay Olson

Did you visit any wastewater treatment plants? How receptive were operators to having an artist capture their work?

Yes, I not only visited area waste water treatment plants but spent hours in the Pump House at Stickney in Chicago drawing plant infrastructure. Plant operators were very excited to hear about my work, and when I show the work locally, I can’t wait to invite the people I have met.

It seems like your work sits in an unusual intersection of art and science. How do you blend these two fields, and what kinds of opportunities and challenges has that presented?

Combining art and wastewater treatment was both a visual and intellectual challenge. Working in this particular way, with a large technical industry, requires focus, endurance, and intense curiosity. It can be intimidating to walk into a large industrial complex; I had never worked in a location that required wearing a hardhat and ear protection. It was like walking into a foreign land and learning a new language, in this case, the language of science.

At first I was overwhelmed by how much I did not know. But my usual response to any life challenge is to sit down and draw. Bit by bit, I acquired enough understanding of the activated sludge process to begin working on that part of the project. My first big creative breakthrough came when I dug into the microbiology of the process and discovered great joy and lots of information drawing the microbes that clean our wastewater. This was a very exciting moment for me. All of a sudden, I felt like my art opened a science door for me.

What do you hope your work will accomplish?

I want to use my skills as an artist to raise awareness about the importance of treated wastewater in discussions about watershed management. Most people flush and forget, but I am using beautiful materials and time-consuming processes to make art about a subject most people think of as unpleasant. Treated wastewater is, at its heart, water…vital, precious, and in limited supply.

Lots of people are intimidated by art. It’s funny how people will have a favorite song or band and not feel the need to have a music degree to appreciate music. But somehow art has been removed from everyday experiences and become rarefied.  I’m really excited to use my art in ways that connect people and show that art can be useful in contributing to issues that matter. Showing my work at WATERCON to engineers and operator was a wonderful experience. People really appreciated what I was trying to do with my art. They could relate their daily work lives to the work I showed.

Now it’s time get the work out into the community. Ideally, I want to use the art as a catalyst for events and discussions related to ecology, water treatment, and science education.  This is one way to educate the public about the value of science, art, and public health.

Would you tell us about your career path? How did you know you wanted to be an artist?

I was the oddball child growing up in a family that worshiped words. From an early age I was interested in visual expression, but I have to say it took me forever to work out how I wanted to be an artist. From the outside this path looks circuitous and illogical. I studied dance with a former Rockette. I studied fashion design and worked in that field for a number of years. As a mature student I attended Columbia College Chicago and graduated with a degree in Fine Arts. A defining moment came when I decided to invent an artist residency for my local police department.  I learned so many things about law enforcement that were not portrayed in popular media that I wanted to use my art work to share what I was learning with the communities law enforcement serves.  That was the beginning of my Artist/Activist career. I knew that the best fit for me was to combine my art skills with community activism and work on issues I care about.

Filamentous Bacteria Nostocoida Limicola by Lindsay Olson

What sort of educational and professional opportunities have you used to develop your career?

Attending WATERCON was a great learning experience. Although much of the technical information from the sessions confused me, I came away with a richer understanding of watershed management. Anything I learn, I funnel right back into my studio practice. 

I’ve received support from Columbia College Chicago where I have taught since 2000. I was awarded 2 faculty grants, and they have been very helpful with the practical elements of my artistic career.

Last summer I traveled to London, Ontario to study with a UK textile artist Jean Draper. I’ll be working with some of the concepts I learned in this workshop over the winter.

Are there any more water projects on your horizon?

In one way or another, water will “infiltrate” my work for a very long time. I am passionate about understanding how water and the watershed behave. Its complexity and the fact that we all depend on water is an exciting and meaningful intersection for me as an artist and budding citizen scientist.

Also, I have a dream to secure passage on a research vessel that works in the Great Lakes. It would be thrilling to go to sea and to observe scientists conducting research up close and personal.

What advice would you give students who are interested in using their art in fields like water resources?

A career in either science or art requires tremendous commitment and dedication. I’d say artists, especially, encounter massive amounts of rejection, but this is becoming true of other fields, too, now that the economic landscape has changed so drastically. My best advice would be to pay attention to what snags your attention. Sometime a small subconscious nudge in a certain direction will lead you to a project you absolutely can’t let go. This attachment to a project or idea can sustain you through outside skepticism, your own inner daemons, and all the cultural pressures one can encounter.  The act of dedicating yourself to a project and working on it one step at a time can lead to the adventure of a lifetime.

 

Stalked Ciliate Vorticella by Lindsay Olson

Applying for Water Jobs: Tips from a Hiring Manager

On WaterJobs we have written about careers and the future of jobs in water.  But how do you actually land a job in water or any other field? As the assistant director and de facto HR rep for IWRC, I have done a lot of searches – 13 in the last 3 years if memory serves. I can usually say yes or no in the first 10 minutes of an interview. Here are a couple of my observations about what to do and what not to do when you are applying and interviewing

1. Write a good cover letter. I like a good letter. I put more stock in cover letters than I do in resumes. If you get my name wrong or the job title messed up, I don’t go any further. If your generic letter could be sent to anyone, I am skeptical. Even if you will take just about anything, you have to show me that you want MY job, and your letter is the place to start. (For more advice on how to write a good cover letter, check out these posts from Ask a Manager and Engineer Jobs).
2. Don’t call unless you have a real question. I have had more than one well-dressed person show up at my office to “turn in their resume” (we do it all electronically these days) or introduce themselves around the time applications are due. Maybe it is different in the private sector, but visits don’t get any brownie points from me. In fact, I usually just get annoyed. Of course, if you have a legitimate question that will determine whether you apply for or will accept the position, then please ask, but otherwise, I’ll call you.
3. Don’t try to hide things. If you have something funky on your resume, I will notice it and wonder about it. I once received a resume that didn’t have any dates on it. Had the person been out of work for a while? Were they really young, or really old? Was their experience in our area in the distant past or really minimal? We can’t and won’t discriminate, but all things being equal, I will interview the people who don’t leave me wondering. That said, you can go too far. I read a cover letter that discussed the candidate’s arrest history and why it was really nothing to worry about. Maybe so, but I probably wouldn’t have known if he hadn’t mentioned it. I guess the moral is: tell me if I will wonder, but don’t open doors that don’t need to be opened.
4. Follow the instructions. In a recent search, a candidate submitted a resume and many very impressive, but unsolicited transcripts. Nice, but this person didn’t submit a cover letter as per the very clear guidelines. Case closed.
5. Do your homework. If you get an interview, be sure to do your homework. I can’t stress this enough. I will ask you about our organization. I expect you to have thought about my job enough to know basically who we are and what we do. And I expect you to have questions for me about it. And not just generic “what’s your management style” questions. Ask me about what research we have funded lately or how things really work or what I like about my job. Or whatever. I need to know you want MY job, not a job.
6.   Think before you post. When I was young and not making the best choices, only my friends knew. With social media, now everyone has the potential to know. And while I may not be in my 20s any more, I use social media too, and I usually do look people up at some point in the process, just to see what’s out there.

And just so you know, when I look at a resume, I am interested in committees you are on, your leadership roles outside of work, international travel, languages, honors and awards and/or other things that show me that you achieve beyond your day job. Don’t waste a lot of resume space on non-work related things, but people who achieve outside of the workplace usually do really well within a workplace.

Three Reasons to Work in Water

We’ve spent a lot of time on Illinois Water talking about different types of water-related jobs, but we’ve never addressed why water careers are worth knowing about. Here are three reasons why water jobs just might deserve your attention.

1. There’s something for everyone

In covering water-related careers, Science wrote that the “opportunities are endless—it's almost a frontier mentality." And, indeed, in our WaterJobs series we’ve interviewed a biologist, professor, planner, engineer, modeler, and developer, and all these people work in water. While that’s only six, you should see our list of proposed interviewees. Water touches everyone and everything in some way or another. And, with a growing human population and increasing demand for freshwater in a developing world, there may be future requirements for water jobs that don’t even exist today.  

2. It’s stable employment (probably)

As long as you’re not planning to swim with the dolphins, you have a good shot at landing an engaging and well-paying job, even without a bachlor’s degree.

Consider these numbers from the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics:

• Demand for Environmental Engineers is expected to grow by 22% from 2010 to 2020
• Demand for Environmental Engineering Technicians (requiring an Associate’s degree) is expected to grow 24% over that same time.
• Biochemists are expecting 31% growth
• And demand for Environmental Science Technicians (also Associate’s) is expected to increase 24%

Positions for environmental scientists, landscape architects, and hydrologists are expected to grow at an average rate (between 16 and 19%) over the next ten years. However, there is one downside in this rosy outlook: conservation biology positions are not growing. It’s always been difficult to work with animals, and the Recession and a decrease in government funding for research has made it more difficult, not just in the United States, but all over the world. While those jobs do exist, they require a lot of hard work, persistence, and volunteer hours to obtain.

One of the reasons some of these fields are seeing stable or above average job growth is rapidly approaching retirement of the baby boomer generation. Engineering firm Brown and Caldwell has developed intern programs to help address their anticipated labor shortages and recorded their experiences here.

3. It matters

The U.S. National Intelligence has identified water access as a major source of potential conflict around the world and a consequent security threat to the United States. While we might not go to war over water in the United States, American water disputes have already caused some acrimonious lawsuits among southwestern states, and Illinois’ reversal of the Chicago River has Michigan pointing fingers in our direction as Great Lakes levels drop. Add to this situation a badly aging infrastructure, including dangerous old dams that need removal, the threat of Asian carp invading the Great Lakes, the Mississippi earning a number three spot on the Weather Channel’s list of most polluted rivers in the world, and UN estimates that nearly 3.4 million people a year die from lack of clean water and it’s not hard to see that water is a field in need of  innovation and lots of hard work.  

In discussing his career, one of our WaterJobs interviewees Rick Manner said that “working for the environment is giving back to society.” If you feel contributing to your community (and the world) is important in your career path, working in water is one of the most practical ways you can make a difference. 

Water Jobs: Ecosystem Management

Paris Collingsworth is an ecosystem specialist with the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant and stationed at the U.S. EPA Great Lakes National Program Office. Paris hails from Alger, OH and attended Samford University in Alabama. He earned his M.S. at Southern Illinois University and completed his education with a Ph.D. from Ohio State University. He is also an avid fisherman and the first person who ever offered to be on WaterJobs when they learned about this series, so a big “thank you” to Dr. Collingsworth for taking the time to answer all of our questions!

Would you explain what an ecosystem specialist does?

My primary duties involve outreach to the broader scientific and management community of the Great Lakes.  Through my connection with the EPA Great Lakes National Program Office, I work with researchers and management agencies across the Great Lakes, providing them with data collected through the EPA-GLNPO monitoring programs.  I am also involved in research.  Some of my more recent projects include improving monitoring program effectiveness through quantitative analyses and coordinating interdisciplinary research across the Great Lakes. 

How does one become an ecosystem specialist?

Well, that is a good question.  Obviously, my job requires a certain academic background. Throughout my career, I have always looked for opportunities to broaden the scale of my research.  It took some time and the process was very incremental, but I am now to the point that I have participated in research or monitoring projects in all 5 of the Great Lakes.  I think this breadth of experience has really benefitted my work.

What does a day in your working life look like?

Most days I work at my desk in a typical cubical farm environment, working on the computer either writing or processing data.  I also spend a lot of time travelling to meet with collaborators to discuss research and monitoring activities.  During the summers I spend a good bit of time on the Lake Guardian collecting field data.

Since you spend a lot of time at a computer processing data, what’s on your work soundtrack?

I love music but I listen more frequently at home than at work.  When I do listen to music at work, it is usually downtempo electronic music, things like Boards of Canada, Tycho and Bonobo.  I like listening to music at work, but it usually just distracts me from what I am doing.

Would you tell us about the fieldwork and data collection you do?

What is your wildest experience doing fieldwork, ever?

I do go out in the field from time to time, but not as much as when I was in graduate school.  My wildest field experience came during my dissertation research.  I was working with two technicians sampling yellow perch in Lake Erie during the early spring spawning season.  The water was very cold and the weather was not cooperating.  As we were pulling in a trawl it got hung up on the bottom and waves started crashing over the transom.  As we worked to get the net untangled, one of the technicians began panicking because he thought we were sinking.  I had to shake him around a bit to get him to snap out of it because we needed his help to get out of the situation.  It seems funny now, but I will never forget the terror in his eyes.  I am proud to say that he finished out the season working on my project and is still in the field to this day.

What do you most wish people understood about your research?

I wish that people understood the subjects of my research better.  Here in the Midwest we have one of the greatest natural resources in the world in the Great Lakes.  These lakes provide water and food for millions of people, support recreation and industry across the region, and are beautiful places to spend some time.  All of these activities cause stress on the ecosystem, but they are a major part of the economies of the Midwest.  Part of my job is to try to minimize the damage that we are causing to the lakes so that future generations will have access to them.

We know you’ve worked with some student interns through Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant; what kind of advice would you give to students who are interested in summer internship?

Let’s assume that the point of an internship is to make one more competitive in the job market.  From my experience, getting a job is mostly about the skills that you have and the people that you know.  An interested student should look for an internship that either expands their skill set or expands their professional network.  

How did you decide to go to graduate school?

I decided to go to graduate school at some point during my last year in college.  My interests were pretty broad at that time, but I had researched enough to know that all of my potential career paths required some graduate work.  The hardest part for me was deciding what field of biology I wanted to pursue and this required a bit of trial and error (see next question). 

When you were 16, what did you want to be when you grew up, and what, if anything, changed your mind? 
When I was 16 (more like 18, but let’s run with it) I wanted to do biomedical research.  What changed my mind was my actual experience in that field.  I landed an excellent job straight out of college working as a technician in a molecular genetics lab.  It was a great opportunity to learn about this field (my first scientific publication described some protein crystallography experiments that I conducted) and, after a few years of paying my dues there, they offered me a Ph.D. assistantship in the lab.  Ultimately, I turned the offer down because I could not see myself working at a lab bench for the rest of my life.  I stayed at that job for a few months while I looked into different options for graduate school.  Aquatic ecology was always interesting to me and fisheries management seemed to be a somewhat practical way to work in that field.  I applied to SIU and the rest is history.