Dykanite

Dykanite is a researcher and science communicator in volcanology who graduated from the University of Florida, where she focused on underwater volcanoes. She worked as a laboratory technician in Alaska and a deep-sea geologic contractor, and now she’s a PhD candidate who researches volcanic processes above and below the water. But she didn’t always know she wanted to study geology. She started in pre-med and even went to nursing school before discovering her love for Earth science. Dykanite tells GO that she partially grew up in Alaska, and “the ocean was a big part of my everyday life back then, so I was inspired to take an oceanography class. It was in this class that I learned about mid-ocean ridge volcanism—a 40,000-mile-long chain of underwater volcanoes that form our entire ocean floor…and from that moment on I was completely hooked.” Despite having found her calling, her career doesn’t come without challenges. “Women in science are often expected to shrink themselves to conform to what the men in that field find acceptable, putting us in a position where we are judged as too feminine for science but not feminine enough for society at large,” she says. Dykanite started sharing online content because she was passionate about her job and has since garnered a massive following. She’s stayed active “due to the thousands of messages I’ve received from students and peers about how much it meant to have that kind of representation in the sciences and realized what I was doing was bigger than myself now.” –SS