Geo Traveler

Celine Mei-An Carus 2012

Hometown: Newton, MA

Major at Earlham: Geology

Interests: Traveling, hanging out with friends and preventing geohazards

Celine Carus '12 loves to travel. During her four years at Earlham, she's taken part in a semester abroad program in New Zealand, and last summer she participated in a research trip in Armenia with Assistant Professor of Geology Cynthia Fadem and fellow student Nate Young. 

Called in by the Armenian Academy of Sciences, Fadem hired the Earlham students as research assistants to spend two weeks working alongside top scientists and archeologists at a dig site in the northeastern part of the country. 

Geologists, says Carus, have a special role to play in archeological research. Knowing the setting and soil composition can effect what types of items archeologists can hope to find, and help explain what's missing from the site. 

The site was near a small, rural village so the team of archeologists, graduate students, and scientists mainly kept her company throughout her two week stay. She remembers the team fondly, and felt lucky to dodge most of the language barrier. "The people were really funny" Carus says, "and almost everyone could speak English." 

Now that Carus is back at Earlham, she's spent a lot of time working alongside Fadem and Young, to interpret all the soil sample and geographic maps they collected. They've already presented preliminary data at the Geological Society of America's annual conference. 

Data research is fun for Carus. Getting together to interpret data, the team "makes some tea together, makes a schedule" and then gets down to work. Fadem takes a hands-off role, allowing Carus to guide the her part of the analysis, helping her when needed, but instead "pointing her in ways to go." So far the team has made strides in studying soil composition and interpreting topographic maps. 

When she's not interpreting data, Carus finds time to walk in Earlham's hundreds of acres of woods and fields known as "back campus" and volunteers at Richmond's Help the Animals Shelter. She is also a member of Russian Club, where she practices her Russian conversation skills. 

When asked about her dream job, Carus hopes to combine two great loves: geology and travel, perhaps with a focus on preventing geohazards, which she describes as the "human side" of geology.