News-Letter

Media Credit: Britni Crocker Professor Darryn Waugh is the head of the newly proposed sustainability major.

Darryn Waugh, a professor of the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department, has been at Hopkins for 10 years. He is the chair of the newly proposed sustainability major.



News-Letter (N-L): When and how did you get interested in earth and planetary sciences?

Darryn Waugh (DW): It was a slow process. I did my undergraduate and went right through to my PhD in applied math. But I was doing applied math of fluid dynamics, so I got interested in the movement of air in the atmosphere. I wasn't doing earth science or meteorology as an undergraduate.



N-L: Is that rare [for an academic to move from applied math to earth and planetary sciences]?

DW: No, it's not rare. I think you will find that a lot of the faculty in this department got at least undergraduate degrees in math or physics. I was doing my PhD in an applied math department that had a group that was doing research on atmosphere and oceans. So it's not rare, but I wouldn't call it common.



N-L: What's the most interesting and valuable project you've ever worked on in your career?

DW: Interesting and valuable are two different things. The most interesting project I've been working on is related to ozone. I've been doing experiments applied to the atmosphere and ozone depletion. This the most interesting project, and I suspect that in terms of society, it's my most valuable project.



N-L: How has interest in your field changed since you began working in it in 1991?

DW: The field has definitely changed. I also noticed a change when I was doing my PhD, I was doing mathematics, and so when I would meet someone and they would ask "What do you study?", I would say "math" and that would stop the conversation. You can imagine: They'd say "Ah, ok" and comment on how they stopped doing math as soon as they could.

Now, if I say that I'm doing ozone analysis and climate studies, everyone knows about it, everyone has questions.

So it's changed for me by changing fields, but also the interest level in my chosen field has certainly gone up.

At the moment, funding is in a kind of difficult stage. I wouldn't say it's easier to get funding now, but there's definitely a lot more interest. And the field is moving a lot towards interdisciplinary studies now.

Continued...

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