homenews | College of Science

Opinion: Water Wasting? U Decide.

April 21, 2025

Nathan Murthy

But the Great Salt Lake is a wide and shallow inland sea, fatally susceptible to evaporation.

In the time the lake levels dropped, the surface area decreased from 3,300 to 950 square miles, a reduction of 2,350 square miles.

The area lost is larger than the land area of the entire state of Delaware. Water diverted for human use from the Bear, Jordan and Weber Rivers is largely to blame.

The Great Salt Lake is at risk of disappearing in our lifetime.

The inland sea is highly productive, supporting billion-dollar industries like salt, brine shrimp and magnesium. Its wetlands host 10-12 million migratory birds, including American white pelicans, snowy plovers and eared grebes.

Additionally, lake effect snow contributes to the Wasatch Front’s relatively high precipitation levels, enabling Utah’s world-famous skiing and distinctive snow quality. Without the lake, the Salt Lake Valley risks becoming as dry and dusty as the West Desert.

The immense challenge of sustaining Great Salt Lake for current and future generations requires all of us to act. Conserving water in every capacity is vital, especially among the biggest water users who must lead by example.

I examined our campus water usage.

Public universities aren’t federally required to disclose their water usage. However, Savannah Jordaan and Alta Fairbourne, members of ASUU, asked the landscaping department for this information.

In 2024, the U used roughly 227 million gallons to irrigate campus landscaping and 808 million gallons in total — costing nearly $10 million. The good news is, since 2020, water usage has decreased by 14%.

However, we still consume over 800 million gallons annually.

Although $10 million seems expensive, it’s relatively cheap for the quantity.

Utah’s water conservancy districts manage water supply via dams and pipelines, funded largely by property taxes. This subsidizes water costs for all users, particularly tax-exempt institutions like the U. Consequently, the university benefits from taxpayer-funded water infrastructure but lacks significant financial incentives to reduce their own consumption.

A significant portion of the U’s water use goes to irrigating lawns and other landscaping features. Lawns require constant watering, especially during Utah’s scorching summers when temperatures can exceed 100°F.

Evaporation further exacerbates water demand, leaving grass thirsty for more precious watershed water.

America’s obsession with lawns stems from European heritage.

Lawns were brought to North America to mimic the estates of British royalty, symbolizing wealth and prestige. Eastern U.S. college campuses often feature lush green lawns sustained by abundant rainfall.

But the U isn’t in England or the East Coast — it’s in a desert.

At Arizona State University, their landscaping features drought-tolerant trees and succulents, mimicking the surrounding desert and providing ecological functionality. The U must adopt a similar approach.

The short answer to this problem is collaboration between students, landscaping and administration.

Read the full op-ed by Nathan Murthy originally posted in The Chronicle here.

Sustainability Associate Director for the Associated Students of the U, Murthy is an earth and environmental Ssience major in the College of Science and works in the Şekercioğlu lab in the School of Biological Sciences. He is also a Wilkes Scholar through the Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy, also in the College of Science.

Letters from Antarctica #5

April 19, 2025

Nawrath deploying an expendable bathythermograph (XBT) to measure water temperature - Photo by Yuhang Liu

There is something about a maritime environment that draws in a variety of people. This voyage is no different. For the science crew, going to sea is an infrequent experience or a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. For the crew, this is their norm. So many pathways can lead you here, so one of the questions that I find myself asking everyone is “How did you end up on this voyage?”

I hope to share several people’s journey to working on an Antarctic research vessel. In this letter I will be doing a short profile of a fellow scientist.

Katie Nawrath, Biogeochemist

Katie Nawrath is studying biogeochemistry onboard the Nuyina. Her story starts with growing up near the ocean in Queensland, Australia. Her path to marine science wasn’t straightforward though. Originally, she completed a degree in physiotherapy. She practiced it for 5 years, but her heart was never in it.

In what she described as “a sideways move,” she worked as a game tester for Survivor in Fiji. She said that that job “fulfilled her need to be next to the ocean.” The job ended in 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic, and she moved back to Queensland and started practicing physiotherapy again. During that time, she took a free, six-month online course from University of Tasmania on Antarctic and Climate Science. The coursework covered climate science and marine science, but she found the later the more interesting. At that point, she decided to move to Tasmania to pursue a bachelor’s degree in Marine and Antarctic Science.

In her third year, she was enrolled in a course called Oceanographic Methods that included sailing on a short transit voyage from Fremantle to Hobart after the Multidisciplinary Investigations of the Southern Oceanvoyage last year. Since I was a scientist on the same voyage, Katie and I could have crossed paths last March on the wharf in Fremantle. On the transit voyage, the students learned oceanographic sampling methods like taking CTDs (Conductivity, Temperature, and Depth measurements) and practicing sampling water.

Katie also worked in a lab washing glassware like vials and beakers for upcoming field work. One day, her boss offered her the opportunity to complete an Honors project that would include participating in the two-month Denman Marine Voyage beginning in March. In Australia, an Honors is a year-long project after finishing a bachelor’s degree. It is often a precursor to a PhD. She accepted the offer and is working on a project comparing the productivity and carbon export in the eastern side versus the western side of the Denman Iceglacier Tongue, a floating extension of the eponymous glacier, which is melting from the bottom up and is susceptible to marine ice sheet instability due to warm water intrusion, potentially leading to rapid retreat and contributing to global sea level rise.

Katie is a volunteer on this voyage although her lab is funded through Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science (ACEAS) which is a government funded program. In Australia, Centres for Excellence are formed which focus on research areas and topics.

Katie’s Honor's project will last nine months. After she is finished with the project, she wants to keep embarking on voyages, hopefully to Antarctica. She said “It is the ocean that brought me here” and she wants to keep studying it.

Letters from Antarctica #4

April 19, 2025

Stapleton shoveling away at the constant deluge of snow and ice onboard - Photo by Pete Harmsen

I hope to share several people’s journey to working on an Antarctic research vessel. In this letter I will be doing a short profile of a field safety officer on board, with the next being of a fellow scientist.

Mick Stapleton, field safety officer

I am lucky enough to share a volunteer shift of sea ice observations with Mick Stapleton, the field safety officer for the seal tagging team. His job is to ensure that ice floes are safe for people to walk on in order to complete seal tagging operations. There is a long list of skills that the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) of the country’s Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment & Water is interested in when hiring field safety experts. It is impossible for one person to have expertise in everything, so most field safety officers have a niche of experience. For Mick, if it involves watercraft or snow machines, his name is likely to come up when looking for a field safety officer.

In the southern hemisphere summers, Mick works as a field safety officer in Antarctica. But his homebase is Victoria, Australia where he works in the winters as ski patrol for a ski resort. His interest in skiing and snow is what started him on this career path. According to Mick, “most Australians don’t work in snow or have experience with snow machines,” so his experience as a ski patroller helped him stand out when applying for field safety officer positions.

Beyond that, Mick has a BA in Outdoor Education and a Diploma of Education. He taught secondary school previously and has experience as a white-water kayaking instructor. Teaching experience, especially in the outdoors, and training in water rescue and first aid are two things that the AAD looks for in field safety officers.

Even with Mick’s experience, it took him six years of applying before he was hired. A small-world connection between participants on this voyage is that during Mick’s first season in Antarctica, he was the safety officer for a field campaign run by another scientist, Benoit, who is on this voyage as well. Earlier their work involved riding snowmobiles around a sea ice field to map out the topography of the area. They lived in tents on the ice for 40 days. That was 20 years ago but both Mick and Benoit both still find themselves coming back to the Antarctic.

On this voyage, Mick helps to assess if a floe is safe for the seal team to walk on. He measures the thickness of the floe, making sure it can support the weight of the team walking around on it. He also checks for structural weaknesses like ridges, undercuts, or snow filled cracks in the ice. He is the first person on the floe and the last person off, ensuring that the whole operation is safe.

Letters from Antarctica #3

April 19, 2025

Boddy releasing a weather balloon for atmospheric research - Photo by Pete Harmsen

I hope to share several people’s journey to working on an Antarctic research vessel. In this letter. I will start with a member of Nuyina’s crew. In subsequent letter’s I will move to a short profile of a field safety officer on board and a scientist.

Stephen Boddy, Deck Operations

Stephen Boddy is one of the IRs (integrated rating) on board Nuyina. He is from Melbourne. One morning at breakfast, Stephen told me that he had a job working for IBM directly out of college where his father worked. However, he quickly learned that he didn’t want to work in an office. At 21 he made a promise to himself that “he would never work inside again” and he has stuck to that. He has stories about working as a windsurfing instructor, an extra in a movie and a field geologist.

After hearing some of Stephen’s stories, I was curious to understand how he ended up working on Nuyina. He said, “It all started when I was 11 when I learned to sail.” Starting his maritime career, he worked on racing boats, delivering yachts, and working on fish farms. This foundation in maritime work is what set him up for an apprenticeship when he found himself in the right circles to become an IR.

The IR certification qualifies a person to operate deck equipment to help with deployments of instruments for the science teams. For each balloon launch the atmospheric science team completes, there is an IR helping us with the deployment by opening the 15 ton heli-hangar door. Their work for other operations includes tasks ranging from operating heavy-duty winches for the sea water sampling to lowering the seal tagging team’s boats off the ship with cranes. The IRs keep the operations on board the ship going and our science wouldn’t be possible without them.

IRs are in high demand, but the certification is very competitive. Stephen said that nine years ago, when he completed his training, most IR positions were passed down through family lines from fathers to sons. However, he met the lecturer for an IR course in Perth while playing poker one night. Because of Stephen’s maritime background the lecturer helped him to get into the 15-week, full-time course at a technical college to become an IR. The coursework is followed by a one and a half year apprenticeship. As an apprentice, he worked on six ships including Australia’s other research vessel, RV Investigator.

While the pay of working on oil and gas tankers was better, Stephen was at odds with the industry and preferred working on the science vessels. Two years ago, a representative of the maritime union called Stephen and asked him what his ideal ship to work on would be. He answered, “The Nuyina.”

Yellowstone’s magma reservoir

April 17, 2025

Fan-Chi Lin, professor of geology and geophysics, holds a portable seismometer. His team deploys hundreds of these instruments in the field to create images of underground formations and other subsurface features. Photo credit: Brian Maffly

That changed this week with new research by seismologists from the University of Utah and the University of New Mexico (UNM) who used hundreds of portable seismometers and a mechanical vibration source to render 2D seismic reflection images of the ground beneath Yellowstone’s caldera.

Using artificial seismic waves, the team determined that the top of the chamber is 3.8 kilometers, or about 12,500 feet, below Earth’s surface, and it is sharply delineated from the rock strata above, according to findings published in the journal Nature. The researchers also determined the portion of the uppermost magma chamber that is comprised of volatile gases and liquids.

“The depth of 3.8 kilometers is important,” said coauthor Jamie Farrell, a U research associate professor of geology and geophysics and chief seismologist for the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, operated by the U.S. Geological Survey. “We know what pressures are going to be and how bubbles are going to come out of the magma. One thing that makes these eruptions so devastating is that if gases are trapped, they become very explosive as they decompress.”

The good news is that these findings indicate the long-dormant Yellowstone Volcano is in no immediate danger of eruption.

This is because much of the volatile gas released from the magma escapes through Yellowstone’s surface geothermal features, such as Mud Volcano, without accumulating to dangerous levels, according to coauthor Fan-Chi Lin, professor in Utah’s Department of Geology & Geophysics.

“When the magma rises from the deeper crust, volatile materials such as CO2 and H2O exsolve from the melt. Due to their buoyancy, they tend to accumulate at the top of the magma chamber,” he said. “But if there’s a channel, they can escape to the surface.”

Read the full article by Brian Maffly in @ TheU.

Woodrats’ immunity to snake venom

April 17, 2025

Adapted from a press release produced by the University of Michigan.

The power of a rattlesnake’s venom to incapacitate its prey may depend on more than just its potency or even the prey animal’s tolerance for the poison. According to a new study published Tuesday in Biology Letters, it also depends a bit on the weather.

Matt Holding. Credit University of Michigan.

“Even across different populations of the same snake species, eating the same prey, we see evolutionary differences in their venoms,” said postdoctoral researcher Matthew Holding, an evolutionary biologist in the University of Michigan Life Sciences Institute and lead author of the study. “With this study, we really wanted to dig into what drives these differences in the natural coevolutionary arms races between the snakes and their prey.”

With colleagues from the University of Nevada, Reno and the University of Utah, Holding analyzed how blood serum samples from wild woodrats responded to rattlesnake venom, a substance that contains hemotoxins that break down blood cells and neurotoxins that cause respiratory paralysis.

Desert woodrats (Neotoma lepida), also known as pack rats, are an herbivorous rodent native to arid regions of the U.S. Southwest. They are renowned for their immunity to toxins that occur naturally in desert environments, including resin from creosote bushes, their primary food source.

As the natural prey of rattlesnakes, woodrats have also evolved resistance to snake venom: they can survive 500 to 1,000 times the amount that would kill a standard lab mouse. This resistance comes from proteins circulating in the rats’ blood that can neutralize the venom.

For this study, the researchers used serum samples from rats that the Utah coauthors Patrice Kurnath Connors and Denise Dearing collected in 2014 in southwest Utah for a different study exploring this species’ resistance to toxins in creosote.

Biologists Denise Dearing, left, and Patrice Kurnath Connors. Credit: University of Utah.

That research was part of Connors’ doctoral dissertation. She is now an associate professor of biology at Colorado Mesa University.

Before the blood serum samples were drawn, the woodrats had been acclimated to captive environments that were either warm (85°F) or cool (70°F). The researchers found that samples from the warm group were better at inhibiting the venom’s toxicity, compared with samples from the cold group.

“We figured the rattlesnake resistance would be the same whether they were in the cool or the warm, and that when we fed them creosote in either temperature, the rattlesnake resistance would drop,” said Dearing, a distinguished professor of biology at the University of Utah and senior author on the study. “We weren’t really thinking about the effect of temperature on rattlesnake resistance, so we were pretty surprised by the results that there was such a huge effect that in the cooler environments, the rattlesnake venom resistance was really low. And in the warmer environments, it was really high.”

Read the full article by Brian Maffly in @The U.

For a while, crocodile

April 17, 2025

Keegan Melstrom, assistant professor, University of Central Oklahoma with three crocodylomorphs. Photo credit: University of Central Oklahoma

Most people think of crocodylians as living fossils— stubbornly unchanged, prehistoric relics that have ruled the world’s swampiest corners for millions of years. But their evolutionary history tells a different story, according to new research led by the University of Central Oklahoma (UCO) and the University of Utah.

Crocodylians are surviving members of a 230-million-year lineage called crocodylomorphs, a group that includes living crocodylians (i.e. crocodiles, alligators and gharials) and their many extinct relatives. Crocodylian ancestors persisted through two mass extinction events, a feat requiring evolutionary agility to adapt to a rapidly changed world. The study’s authors discovered that one secret to crocodylian longevity is their remarkably flexible lifestyles, both in what they eat and the habitat in which they get it.

“Lots of groups closely related to crocodylians were more diverse, more abundant, and exhibited different ecologies, yet they all disappeared except these few generalist crocodylians alive today,” said Keegan Melstrom, lead author and assistant professor at UCO, who began the research as a doctoral student at the U. “Extinction and survivorship are two sides of the same coin. Through all mass extinctions, some groups manage to persist and diversify. What can we learn by studying the deeper evolutionary patterns imparted by these events?”

Earth has experienced five mass extinctions in its history. Experts argue that we’re living through a sixth, driven by habitat destruction, invasive species and changing climates. Identifying traits that boost survivorship during planetary upheaval may help scientists and conservationists better protect vulnerable species today.

Historically, the field has regarded mammals as the poster children for understanding mass extinction survival, lauding their generalist diet and ability to thrive in different ecological niches. Despite their resilience, research has largely ignored the crocodylomorph clade. The paper, published on April 16 in the journal Palaeontology, is the first to reconstruct the dietary ecology of crocodylomorphs to identify characteristics that helped some groups persist and thrive through two mass extinctions—the end-Triassic, about 201.4 million years ago (Ma), and the end-Cretaceous, about 66 Ma.

“There’s a danger of trying to draw conclusions from millions of years ago and directly apply it to conservation. We have to be cautious,” said co-author Randy Irmis, curator of paleontology at the Natural History Museum of Utah and professor in the U’s Department of Geology & Geophysics. “If people study mammals and reptiles and find the same patterns with respect to extinction survival, then we might predict that species with a generalist diet may do better. That information helps us make predictions, but it’s unlikely we’ll ever be able to pick out which individual species will survive.”

A hidden past of alternative lifestyles

Randy Irmis faces off with a fossil Borealosuchus skull from the Natural History Museum of Utah’s collections. This crocodylian lived approximately 48 million years ago in the American West. Photo credit: Jack Rodgers/NHMU

Living crocodylians are famous for being semi-aquatic generalists that thrive in environments like lakes, rivers or marshes, waiting to ambush unsuspecting prey. Picky eaters, they are not. Young ones will snack on anything from tadpoles, insects or crustaceans before graduating to bigger fare, such as fish, baby deer, or even fellow crocs. Yet the uniform lifestyle of today’s crocodylians masks a massive diversity of dietary ecologies in which past crocodylomorphs thrived.

During the Late Triassic Period (237–201.4 Ma) Pseudosuchia, a broader evolutionary group that includes early crocodylomorphs and many other extinct lineages, ruled the land. The earliest crocodylomorphs were small-to-medium-sized creatures that were rare in their ecosystems, and were carnivores that mostly ate small animals. In contrast, other pseudosuchian groups dominated on land, occupied a wide range of ecological roles and exhibited a dizzying diversity of body shapes and sizes.

Despite their dominance, once the end-Triassic extinction hit, no non-crocodylomorph pseudosuchians survived. Whereas hyper-carnivore crocodylomorphs appeared to also die off, the terrestrial generalists made it through. The authors hypothesize that this ability to eat almost anything allowed them to survive, while so many other groups went extinct.

Read the full story by Lisa Potter in @The U.

An immortalized smile at chemistry

April 16, 2025

Distinguished Professor of Chemistry Valeria Molinero admires the detail of the molecule model held in the statue's left hand.

It was an anecdote ably recounted by the scientist’s son, President Henry B. Eyring, on the occasion of the installment of a new statue to honor Eyring senior in the chemistry building at the U on April 12. The chemist’s response was not only to his friends embedded at the post-WWII Ivy League institution that had attracted (or would soon attract) a whole host of famous scientists that included Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer, John von Neumann and Eugene Wigner; it was confirmation of Eyring’s own character of intellectual acumen and his lifelong ethic of seamlessly integrating both academics and faith.

Surrounded by Henry Eyring’s proliferating descendants, the event with 120+ onlookers crowded into the lobby-in-the round of the chemistry building, named after Eyring, for the unveiling. Interim chair of the Department of Chemistry Peter Armentrout talked about Eyring’s contributions to theoretical chemistry that have fundamentally shaped our understanding of chemical kinetics. "I know that for a fact,” he said, “because I do chemical kinetics, and I use some of his principles all the time.” Eyring developed the absolute rate theory, known as the Eyring equation, and he is known for his seminal research on the theory of liquids, optical rotation, rate processes in biology and medicine, aging and cancer, and anesthesiology. He was presented with the National Medal of Science in 1966 by Lyndon B. Johnson and received the Wolf Prize in Chemistry in 1980.

Inaugural dean

U President Randall Taylor also reminded the gathering that Eyring arrived at the U as the inaugural dean of the graduate school which was the first university to receive a grant from the National Institutes of Health. “The United States was in the process of trying to define how it would do research in the Cold War era,” Randall recounted, invoking the inflection points in the U’s history. “In fact, today, even the announcements that have been made all week about national science funding … that is questioning the fundamental agreement that was made when Henry Eyring arrived at the University of Utah.”

From the moment of his arrival in Utah, Eyring’s passion for discovery and education became evident in parallel play with his skill at bridging the findings of science with profound philosophical thought. A beneficiary of this legacy during the 60s was Khosrow Semnani who arrived in Utah in 1968 and was a graduate student for a time in Eyring’s lab. Next to two family members, Semnani said, Eyring was the third “guiding light” in his life. It was the good professor's letter of recommendation that helped the new arrival from Iran land his first job at Kennecott Copper Mine. To “pay it forward," Semnani, now generous philanthropist, funded the design, casting and installation of the statue — sculpted by Mark Degraffenried and cast under the direction of Brett Wright at the Metal Arts Foundry in Lehi.

Also on hand for remarks was Hamid Ghandehari professor and chair of the Department of Molecular Pharmaceutics at the U and brother to Hossein Ghandehari who was Eyring’s Ph.D. student and later research associate in the late 60s/early 70s. Hossein’s remembrances were read by his brother who regaled the appreciative crowd with memories of not only Eyring’s academic mentorship but his athleticism. “I am sure some of you have heard of him jumping up on his desk from the floor,” read Hamid, “when he was much younger than at the time I met him.” Eyring famously held an annual foot race with his students and other in the office. “He worked very hard to beat us in the race and we did take the difference in age into account . . . but not by much."

Science and faith

Taylor Randall, sculptor Mark Degraffenried, and Peter Armetrout.

A third-generation member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Eyring never saw any conflict between his scientific studies and his Mormon faith. "Is there any conflict between science and religion?,” he was quoted as saying in a 1983 biography. “There is no conflict in the mind of God, but often there is conflict in the minds of men." Son President Eyring, an academic in his own right and now a senior member of the church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, recalled his father giving a talk as president of the American Chemical Society, “and he said, in the middle of ... explaining one of these theories. … ‘Oh, I heard God saying… Henry, you got it wrong again.’ He really saw deity as a person.”

It was his father’s firm belief that he was a child of God, “and that God was the great creator, and really understood chemistry, really understood everything” that in turn benefited his students and colleagues, all of whom, Henry Eyring felt, were loved by not only a higher power, but a deified father figure. Continued President Eyring: “I sometimes said, Dad, why don't you pray and ask God to tell you something. And he said, ‘It wouldn't help. I wouldn't understand it.’”

Many individuals, not only his colleagues at the U, believed that Henry Eyring should have been awarded the Nobel prize for his research and stellar contributions, connecting the fields of chemistry and physics through atomic theory, quantum theory, and statistical mechanics. (Eyring was in fact nominated for the honor more than once.) Apparently, so also thought the president of the Swedish Academy which grants the prize and who was himself a chemist and a friend of Eyring’s. Once while the academy president and, coincidentally, the King of Sweden, were talking, Eyring — known to be a jokester — was sitting on a nearby sofa when the academy president asked him, “Are you offended that we never gave you the prize?” Reportedly, Eyring said, “Oh, no, I gave it to myself years ago.”

At the beginning of his remarks at the unveiling, the younger Eyring, at 92 and seated in a wheelchair, said he was glad he had his back to the effigy of his father, the left hand of the statue cast in bronze and fingering, almost lovingly, the model of a molecule. “When I look at this,” the younger Eyring said, gesturing over his shoulder, ”I cry. I'm glad I can't see it, because that smile is the smile he always had when he taught about chemistry, and he was trying to lift people. That's what he did.”

You can read more about the legacy of Henry Eyring here.

By David Pace

Other dignitaries attending the ceremony included former Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, Elder Dale G. Renlund of the LDS church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Peter Trapa Senior Dean and Associate Provost, and Pearl Sandick, interim dean of the College of Science.

Getting miners home safe at night

April 15, 2025

Geoffrey King

“I’ve always had a wide range of interests,” he says. “It’s a blessing and a curse.”

At 43, King is not your typical graduate student. He’s worked in oil fields and mines, taught high school science, flipped houses, run a rental business, and even planned a year-long move to Spain. Now, he’s a student in the first-ever cohort of a master’s program at the University of Utah focused on mining safety. The interdisciplinary program is a collaboration between the U’s Department of Mining Engineering at the Rocky Mountain Center for Occupational and Environmental Health.

King’s path to mining safety was a circuitous one. After earning a geology degree from Weber State, he jumped into the industry, taking a job as a mine operations geologist with US Oil Sands. The company was trying to extract crude oil from Utah’s sandstone — an environmentally friendlier process than the Alberta tar sands operations — but like many before them, they struggled to make it profitable.

“They failed,” Geoffrey says matter-of-factly. “The price of oil wasn’t high enough, and the costs were too steep.”

Next came a six-month contract at the Kennecott Copper Mine, analyzing rock cores to predict slope stability — a crucial task in preventing catastrophic landslides. After that, a pivot: teaching high school earth sciences.

Then came Spain. Or at least, the idea of it. King and his wife had planned to move their family overseas for a year. She, ever the pragmatist, suggested he use the time to figure out what he wanted to do “when he grew up.” So, he did what everyone seems to do these days; he turned to ChatGPT.

“I asked it to give me five career ideas based on my background,” he recalls. “First one? Occupational and environmental safety and health.”

The more King looked into it, the more it made sense. He’d always been drawn to safety, having started his industrial career in the oil fields, where he’d seen firsthand the consequences of cutting corners. “I chopped off a big chunk of my finger,” he says. “And I’ve seen guys in the field with hooks for hands. Safety’s no joke.”

Spain, however, would have to wait. Advisors told him that if he wanted a career in occupational safety, the U.S. was the place to train — home to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the highest industry standards. So, he made a call to the U.

“I got lucky,” he admits. “Normally, I would’ve missed the application deadline by months. But this program had just launched. I interviewed, got accepted, and they offered to pay for the whole thing. At that point, I had to really consider it.”

Now, King is deep into coursework that surprised him with its emphasis on health science. “I thought I’d be learning mostly about safety — hard hats, harnesses, protocols,” he says. “Turns out, I’m taking classes with medical residents and postdocs, studying how toxic exposures affect the body.”

His studies will take him to South America this summer, where he’ll do an internship in Colombia. “I’ve got some Spanish,” he says, “but I want a lot more.” More importantly, he wants to bridge the gap between academia and the workers who need this knowledge the most.

“There’s this massive machine of occupational safety research happening in universities,” he says, “but I see a disconnect between that and the guy working next to an asphalt paver on the freeway. That’s who I want to help.”

King’s passion for connecting people to knowledge isn’t new. He credits his own education to his mother, who, despite severe

Geoffrey King and his children.

financial struggles and mental health challenges, made sure he had exposure to science. “We were poor,” he says, “but she always brought us to the Utah Museum of Natural History [NHMU] on free Mondays. That’s what set me on this path.”

This excursion into graduate school at the U is not his first rodeo — or perhaps more appropriately, not his first hard rock lesson. In addition to his youthful visits to the NHMU in what is now the Crocker Science Center, he "went to preschool right here on 2nd South. Kindergarten just down the road. Our neighbor had alligators in their backyard,” he adds with a laugh. “I’ve known where Presidents Circle is for a long time.”

As for what’s next, King — who when he’s not “digging” into his pastimes of coaching basketball, hiking and traveling — keeps his options and one more circuitous route open. “I might go into consulting, or mining safety or construction. Maybe I’ll start my own business.” He pauses, then grins. “That drives my wife nuts.”

Whatever he chooses, Geoffrey King knows one thing: he wants to make a real impact. “In this field, you can be the person making sure workers get home safe at night. That’s powerful.”