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Eleanora I. Robbins Research Geologist Norrie Robbins is a research geologist which means she is paid to come up with ideas, test them, and then write them up and get them into print. Mostly she juggles different research projects by doing a little of each one every day. She spends as much time as possible in the field and looking under her microscope. She is working on the relationship between coal, petroleum, and ore deposits - she works on everything economic! At the present time, she is learning how bacteria precipitate metals. She spends a lot of time on the phone making friends with microbiologists who can explain what she is seeing under her microscope. They suggest articles for her to read. In contrast to earth scientists, she finds that microbiologists don't have a time dimension to their work; in order to produce an economic deposit, a particular microbial process must work for a long time. She says that her first contact with earth science was "Dad taking us out to wander the creek in front of our apartment and look for fossils". She decided to be an earth scientist in her freshman year in college when a professor explained something she had observed as a child, that streams change their patterns in response to changes in velocity of water, amount of water and sediment. In college she was interested in both geology and botany and found a field, palynology (the study of pollen) that combined both interests. Her first job after receiving a B.S. degree in geology from Ohio State University was in the Peace Corps where she worked for the Geological Survey of Tanganyika (Tanzania). For her vacation, she mapped the Olorgesailie site for Louis Leakey. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) hired her when she returned because she had foreign experience and she has now worked for them at the Virginia office for over 20 years. After six years of work she took two years off to get a M.S. degree from the University of Arizona. After another six years with the USGS, she took one year off to take courses and pass examinations for her Ph.D., which she received from Pennsylvania State University two years later. What she likes best about her job is the freedom, within program guidelines, to develop her own research ideas. For the past three years Norrie has been teaching a summer field geology course to inner-city minority children in Washington D.C. She was given the Department of Interior "Points of Light" award for this volunteer effort. She writes, "I think I have been able to love my work continuously because I broke up working with schooling. I have noticed that people who went straight through school seem to burn out and need to get away from research. I am a workaholic, married, no children. I am married to a fellow scientist, a rat and bat zoologist. I suspect that successful workaholism came from having no children. I don't have a clue how women can balance all three things - I see a lot of harried women. This life we lead takes me all over the world, which is good because I remember a professor saying that you have to see the whole world to be a successful geologist." Back to Career Profiles

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