By Roxanne Ray, International Examiner

A decade after earning her Ph.D. in Oceanography from the University of Washington, Bonnie Chang continues to serve as a Research Scientist at UW’s Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean, and Ecosystem Studies. Her favorite element on the periodic table? Nitrogen. 

Chang came to the ocean’s nitrogen by way of examining chemicals in the lab. “I studied inorganic chemistry in college and during the summers we were encouraged to find internships and work in labs to gain real-world experience,” Chang said. “But I was also interested in sailing and having fun adventures during the summer and so during my junior year in college, I applied for an internship in marine chemistry.” 

The real-world application of her classroom learning made this internship memorable for Chang. “That summer I got to dig wells in the wide, sandy beaches of Delaware to investigate groundwater seepage and learn about its role in the ecosystem of Delaware Bay,” she said. “I became fascinated by the intersection of all the different disciplines in that one project – chemistry, biology, hydrology, geology – and then thinking about the impacts to the entire Bay and all its inhabitants.” 

Chang received both personal and institutional support for this change of direction. “I’m a first-generation Chinese-American, so obviously my mom hoped I would become a doctor or a lawyer,” Chang said, “but she never batted an eye when I said I was going to go to graduate school to study oceanography.” 

Undergirding it all was funding at the national level. “I was surprised to find out late in my senior year of college that the U.S. federal government supports the majority of graduate science education, across many scientific disciplines, not just oceanography, in the form of graduate student research assistantships which pay for students’ graduate school tuition and stipends for living expenses,” Chang said. “In exchange, graduate students carry out much of the lab and field work, data analysis, and writing up of research studies that are funded by the federal government at colleges and universities.”