Disappointment leads to discovery for doctoral student Diver Marin

Diver Marin loves his work at the Occoquan Watershed Monitoring Laboratory.

The civil and environmental engineering doctoral student is a graduate research assistant for the National Science Foundation-funded project Managing Salt Pollution to Protect Drinking Water Resources and Freshwater Ecosystems. “My work here is to understand the transport of salts at the watershed scale, not only at local scales like little small watersheds, but also at continental scale,” he said.

Disappointment leads to discovery

This is not what Marin thought he would be doing when he graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Universidad de Antioquia in his native Colombia. He spent a year searching for a job with no success and found himself wondering what to do with his life. “One day, I just sat down and started to think about that question: 'What are the things I would like to do?'” he said. “And I remembered when I was doing my undergraduate work, I took a course in hydrology and that was my favorite course.”

He began researching what he could do in the field of hydrology and noted its connection to atmospheric science, another course he liked. He returned to his university to pursue a master’s degree and learned he also loved research. “I was fascinated and thought, 'Why not?' This is what I like.”

Working on his master’s degree provided networking opportunities, and one of those led to his current work. He met Jesus Gomez-Velez, a professor at Vanderbilt University working on hydrology and watershed issues, who became a member of the water project team, which includes three universities in addition to Virginia Tech. Gomez-Velez told Marin the team needed a doctoral research assistant. “He told me about the salinization project, and then I had the opportunity to talk to Dr. Stanley Grant, who is the principal investigator of the project,” Marin said. “And they gave me the opportunity to come here and to do my Ph.D. at the Occoquan lab.”

He said Virginia Tech has a global reputation for excellence with “really cool people working here and great professors. So it was a huge opportunity for me, and I took it.”

Reseach that impacts society

Marin said the lab has both amazing resources and an excellent team of talented scientists working on the water project. “We have a really important mission, right? It is to not only measure and go to the field and take measurements, but it's also thinking about how we can use this information to really impact society,” Marin said. “How can we contribute to society to inform better the policymakers, stakeholders, and also people?”

He said the team at the Occoquan lab is supportive and always willing to help. He also enjoys working with the researchers from the other universities. He said Grant, the director of the lab, encourages collaboration and working across research fields. “He really likes to do science with people from different backgrounds,” Marin said. “We have in our project people with backgrounds in social sciences, engineering, and biological sciences.” Grant is co-advisor for his Ph.D. along with primary advisor, Professor Admin Husic.

While Marin spends a good portion of his time studying or working in the lab, he also makes time for fun. He loves soccer and goes to the gym regularly. He also likes exploring the communities around Occoquan, and he attends a nearby church and participates in its social activities. He also visits his girlfriend when he can.

'The things that I really wanted to do'

Marin said he has about 2 1/2 years before graduating with his doctoral degree. After that, he plans to explore potential positions in the hydrology field. “I'm open to work in the academy or industry. I really like to do research,” he said. “So if you ask me, I would prefer a job in which I will be fully invested in doing research.”

Reflecting on the path that led him pursue a Ph.D. at Virginia Tech and his work at the lab, he feels that he needed that first year of disappointment to find his passion. “I looked to the past and I realized that all the struggle that I had trying to find a job and I had thinking about what to do with my life, was something that I needed to experience before being able to get the right track and do the things that I really wanted to do.”