White's position is the first to be funded in part by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support environmental studies at Haverford. She'll also help to develop an environmental studies curriculum.
Haverford's new assistant professor of environmental chemistry Helen K. White pursued her chosen field because she believed it would speed her path to her dream job: astronaut.“The first European woman in space, Helen Sharman, was a chemist,” she explains.“I decided it was a good path to follow.”
But White—whose professorship is the first of three new faculty positions funded in part by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support environmental studies at Haverford—also enjoyed science on its own merits.“I loved playing with nature and being outdoors,” she says. Although her undergraduate work at the University of Sussex in the U.K. concentrated on organic synthesis (the making of new organic compounds), she switched her focus to environmental studies because she wanted to combine one of her personal passions—scuba diving—with her professional interests.“I was diving at a shipwreck one day, and I started wondering about the ocean and its chemistry,” she says. She went on to get her Ph.D. in chemical oceanography from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
White's ongoing research often takes her to the bottom of the sea, as she studies the fate of certain organic compounds and sediments that accumulate on the ocean floor.“I'm interested in man-made compounds,” she says,“which show how we influence the environment.” She also examines natural compounds, trying to determine how both types cycle in nature as they move among different reservoirs. White relies on isotope dating, using radio carbon material, to discover the ages of compounds, as well as their types: Most man-made compounds do not contain any radio carbon.
White sees the field of environmental chemistry gaining popularity as issues like global warming become more prevalent.“Everyone actively cares about their local environment,” she says.“And more and more people are thinking about their carbon footprint and their contributions to the global environment.”
At Haverford, White will be part of a working group charged with developing an environmental studies curriculum at Haverford. She will teach both general and environmental chemistry, and supervise students in a research lab.
White is especially looking forward to building relationships with her students.“I'm excited to work with them in the lab and take them into the field,” she says.“I'm already looking for good nearby sites to visit.”
