Mariana Cains, '11

Mariana Cains, ’11, B.S., environmental science – toxicology, believes in the power of making connections.

After earning a doctorate at the Indiana University in environmental science with a focus on risk assessment, Cains is now a scientist at the U.S. National Science Foundation National Center for Atmospheric Research building relationships between the scientists developing new innovative technologies in Earth system science and the people who use that information for decision-making, like weather forecasters and natural resource managers.

“I’m most proud of helping scientists realize their efforts have an intended end user, and to make sure that the end user’s needs and expertise are part of the scientific development process,” Cains says. “For example, more and more technical information is being developed through AI for weather forecasting, and my work bridges the technical expertise of the researchers and engineers with the domain and operational knowledge of the forecasters to co-develop a forecasting product that is both scientifically interesting and actually needed.”

Cains owes her own career to the power of connections. Her junior year at Western, Cains met College of the Environment Undergraduate Advisor Mary Moores to discuss the internship versus senior thesis graduation requirement and talked about her passions for environmental science, toxicology and problem-solving.

Moores suggested Cains consider the senior thesis option — and Moores knew just the person to talk to.

“He can be a little intimidating,” Moores told her, “but you’ll be fine.”

That’s how Cains met Professor Wayne Landis. And, yes, he was a little intimidating.

“Not because he was being gruff just to be gruff,” Cains remembers. “It was more like, here’s the rigor and expectation that he has of himself in the sciences — and also of the students he takes on.”

Over the next year, Landis taught Cains about scientific research and helped her plan and execute her senior thesis on stormwater toxicity and Daphnia Magna, her first independent research project. At the beginning of her senior year, he asked her something she didn’t expect: “What about grad school?”

A first-generation college student, Cains had never considered graduate school. But through their research and mentoring discussions, she learned that Landis was a first-generation college student, too.

“He saw something in me that I didn’t,” Cains says. “He had a similar family path.”

Cains did end up working as an analytical chemist for a couple of years before heading to Bloomington, Indiana, where she earned two master’s degrees — one in environmental chemistry, toxicology and risk assessment and another in environmental policy and natural resource management — before completing her doctorate.

That interdisciplinary background, paired with systems thinking, has fueled her research and liaison work, she says.

“All of the societal and environmental challenges take multiple disciplines, as well as seeing the interconnectedness of it all,” she says. “It’s not just one expertise.”

Those connections are paying off. Lately, Cains is hearing her colleagues discuss the question of who will benefit from the technology they’re developing.

“I’ll see them in meetings, asking questions like, ‘Well, before we get ahead of ourselves, who’s our intended audience?’ or ‘Will this tool actually be useful?’ It’s quite rewarding when you realize they’ve absorbed the needs of end users and actionable science into their ways of thinking.”