Ariel Rivers: Finding Solutions, Sharing Knowledge

Name: Ariel Rivers, Ph.D.

Preferred Pronouns: She/Her

Hometown & Current Town: Livermore, CA/Cool, CA

Graduation Year: Ph.D. 2016

Majors: International Agriculture and Development, Entomology

Additional Degrees & Institutions: UC Davis, BS Soil and Water Science, Minor International Agricultural Development; San Jose State, MS Environmental Studies

Current Professional Title: Director of Membership Engagement

Name of Organization: The National Association of Conservation Districts

Brief Description of Your Role: The National Association of Conservation Districts serves as a membership organization for the 3,000 conservation districts across the US and abroad. Most conservation districts were established in response to the Dust Bowl to serve as a local partner to the USDA's Soil Conservation Service, which is now known as the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Districts support their local communities with a variety of natural resource and agricultural issues, depending on where the districts are geographically.

Each conservation district has an elected or appointed board that manages programs and guides the priorities based on local needs. At NACD, we serve as a resource for districts by providing advocacy, education, and partnerships that can help support the projects and activities of districts and others working in conservation. In my role, I recruit members to NACD and manage our membership services; run networking and learning webinars; and support our annual and summer meetings, among many other activities. My job really varies every day.

Why did you choose Penn State for your doctorate?

I was working for the federal government as a soil conservationist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, which is a very locally focused role in the county I was working in. Prior to that, I had done quite a bit of international work, and I wanted to get back to that. My job was also a temporary assignment with the USDA, so I needed to look for other positions within the agency or elsewhere.

I was considering opportunities to continue my education, and Penn State was very appealing. I had degrees in multiple contexts, and the Ph.D. position would bring a lot of those different disciplines together. It was a more holistic program than the others I was evaluating, and it offered a dual-title program in International Agriculture and Development (INTAD). I liked that I could get a Ph.D. in entomology as my primary discipline and supplement my technical knowledge with additional coursework through INTAD. It was also very clear that I would be able to get the support that I needed, both financially and through the incredible community of people that clearly wanted their students to succeed. That was very apparent in the conversations I had prior to joining Penn State.

What inspired you to pursue your degree in Entomology?

My master's is in environmental studies, but I had dabbled in studying biodiversity and conservation, specifically of insects. When I was looking for Ph.D. positions, it was the middle of summer, and there was one position open at Penn State at the time with Dr. Mary Barbercheck in entomology, who would become my advisor. The project was looking at cover cropping and ways to reduce tillage in organic production systems, and incorporated entomology, soils, and weed management. I'd also always been very focused on conservation within agriculture, and the organic aspect brought in some of those principles. It was a really appealing project because it incorporated all aspects of my past.

Mary was thinking about how broader aspects of the environment might influence insect communities. I knew I would be able to look at this collection of practices and how they relate to the overarching ecology of these environments.

You also did a dual title in International Agriculture and Development. What inspired you to pursue this program in conjunction with entomology?

In 2011, when I was looking at Ph.D. programs, there was a lot of opportunity to think about the role of the U.S. and what we can do to support scientists abroad. We have fantastic systems here in the U.S. in terms of providing technical assistance to producers to improve their water systems and soil health, or conserve biodiversity. We have county extension offices or organizations, such as the NRCS, that can help you adopt these practices and sometimes even provide financial assistance.

That structure often doesn't exist abroad. I wanted to be a person who could provide that assistance and help local people learn how to implement conservation practices themselves. I loved the work I had done with the NRCS.

I speak Spanish, am inherently curious, and want to learn how the world works. Being able to continue to grow my knowledge and maybe go abroad and provide that type of support appealed to me at the time. Individuals in the US and abroad face many barriers when choosing to adapt or improve their agricultural operations, and I wanted to continue to gain knowledge and learn about the limitations people face in adopting practices. INTAD helped me in that way.

How has your Penn State education influenced your career or life?

As part of the INTAD dual title, some aspect of our dissertation had to be related to international work. During my Ph.D., I spent six months living and working in Mexico, where I conducted a portion of my research at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center. It was funded through a Borlaug Fellowship in Global Food Security, and it was meant to take place at specific research centers that are part of CGIAR, a global agricultural research partnership.

That was an incredible opportunity because then I was offered a post-doc after my Ph.D., and I went to work in Mexico. That wouldn't have happened if I hadn't done the work that was required for my dissertation.

As I continued to move through my career, now I'm in a position where I'm required to think across the spectrum of disciplines and bring people together to learn and network across the nation and even with overseas territories, independent nations, and tribal nations within the borders of the U.S.

Can you talk about some of the highlights of your career so far and how they have helped guide you to where you are today?

Working in Mexico was definitely a highlight. When I was there, my title was Post-Harvest Coordinator for Latin America, so I was working primarily in Mexico and had a few projects in Guatemala. I was able to visit places within Mexico that I would never have been able to travel to otherwise. I've been to most states in Mexico and on farms working with individuals to provide assistance, do research projects, and support demonstration sites for different practices.

That was an incredible opportunity to think about how people produce food in low-resource environments, how you feed your family without refrigeration, and how we as scientists can use our knowledge to help others. There was one time when we gave a presentation and shared some practices, and afterward, a woman came and handed me a tortilla-warming cloth. She thanked me for teaching them these practices that helped them save so much more grain on the small parcel of land they have, which matters toward the end of the year, because when they're out of grain that they saved from the prior year's harvest, they're out. They would have to buy grain, and often don't have jobs or money to do that in these very isolated communities. They're saving it better, protecting it from insect destruction, and making it last longer from harvest, and that matters. I loved seeing that impact.

She gave me this warming cloth because she felt that was what she could give me in exchange for the knowledge I shared with her. It's knowledge that's heavily cultivated through relationships and partnerships with Mexican scientists and many others, and it was such a privilege to be a part of that. I still have that cloth almost a decade later. The enjoyment people get from sharing knowledge is incredible to me and I love being able to facilitate those dialogues between and with people.

What has been the best advice you've ever received?

Continue to be curious and have conversations with people and learn how they got to the positions they did. Talk to as many people as you can and glean as much information as you can about people’s careers. It’s really helpful, because you may learn about jobs you didn't know existed.

In addition to your professional career, you also have a small farm in California that keeps you busy with milk goats, eggs, cheese-making, and more. Can you talk about this labor of love and how it came to be and where you hope it goes in the future?

I was raised on a ranch. We didn't have a lot of capital, which meant that on our ranch, we ran out of water in the summer because in California, it rarely rains between March and October, and we're often in a seasonal drought. When our well went dry for the year, it was gone until it rained enough to recharge. There were times we'd turn on the faucet, and nothing would come out, which was frustrating to me as a kid. I didn't understand why we didn't have a solution to this.

We didn't have the money to fix the problem. My parents didn't graduate from high school, but they were lucky in that we have a national lab in our hometown, and they were later able to get jobs there, and that's also where I got my first job out of college.

All this to say, I studied soil and water science because I wanted solutions to the problems we faced. I wanted to figure out how people like us could access water and utilize our resources well. My family still has that ranch, and it still matters deeply to me to work on issues related to conservation.

California is a biodiversity hotspot, and I think about these beautiful environments and how we can continue to make sure they exist and that people appreciate them.

I now have my own five acres, and we're in an isolated part of the state, adjacent to many public lands, and with a high risk for fires. There's a constant need to maintain the landscape to make it less fire-prone while also maintaining biodiversity and improving soil health. I try to augment the habitat for wildlife here as much as possible, and maintain my soils because, with our erratic rainfall, I could lose half my hillside if I'm not careful, as my whole property is sloped. I revegetate with native grasses, sages, and a variety of other beneficial plants.

I'm trained as a scientist, and while I don't do science anymore professionally, I also have a small-scale grain experiment in my front yard where I'm growing multiple drought-tolerant grains like chia and amaranth, which are crops indigenous to the Americas, and corn, millet, and sorghum. I like to see if I can grow these things and better understand their lifecycles and how to harvest them, but I also use them to feed my animals as well.

We have goats, and they're primarily for pure enjoyment, but they also help with maintaining our landscape, including reducing poison oak. I also milk them and make cheese for fun. This is a big hobby for me, or, as I like to call it, my five-acre experiment, because I like to continue learning about agriculture in this way.

As a first-generation high school graduate and then a first-generation college graduate, how did you navigate this path without having others in your life with that type of experience?

It's only now that I can really look back and say that I needed a lot more support than I had. I was fortunate to grow up in the San Francisco Bay Area. There's been a lot of research around this, but I am fortunate that, inherently, I was going to be economically mobile simply because of the sheer amount of wealth in that area. There was a strong guarantee that I would be in a higher economic class than my parents just because of the zip code I was born in.

I struggled, but growing up in California with the University of California system and then being a "gifted" child, I was almost guaranteed a spot at one of those schools. I was lucky. However, I still didn't know what I was doing.

I had just turned 17 when I went to college. I didn't know what to look for as a future career. I didn't know what networking was or what mentorship meant. When I graduated, part of the reason I worked at the lab was that my parents worked there in support roles, and I didn't know what else to do.

When you're not raised in an educated environment, it's also very hard to feel comfortable in those spaces. My imposter syndrome is still an issue I deal with. Throughout my Ph.D., I never felt like I belonged there. I was always waiting for someone to kick me out. That's stressful.

This is where I must give Deanna Behring in the AgSci Global Office a ton of credit because their culture of mentorship was very strong. I always knew if I walked into that office with a vague idea of something I wanted to do, they would help me figure it out. Had I had the services the college is offering now to students similar to me, I would've gone forward on a much more defined path instead of stabbing in the dark, which is what it felt like.

It's ultimately worked out, and I've enjoyed all of my jobs, but it could've been more strategic and planned out.

What is a favorite Penn State memory?

When we'd be out at Rock Springs doing research and would come back to campus in the afternoon, the creamery was right next to our building. The Death by Chocolate ice cream after a hot day in the field, there was nothing better than that.

The Department of Entomology was also just an amazing community. We had a great grad student group. We did a pig roast every fall and a canoe trip every spring. I have so many good memories.

Why are you proud to be a Penn State Ag Sciences alum?

Pennsylvania wasn't on my radar. California is such a big state and can be very insular. People wondered why I was going all the way over there. I wasn't sure what to expect when I got there, but I loved my time in Pennsylvania. It's so culturally different than California. I enjoyed having four seasons, for example.

To spend that time there and be a part of such an amazing community of people that I was able to learn from and network with was incredible. Many of the people I met are still my friends today. The state holds a special place in my heart.

Now, seeing the work coming out of the college and especially through the Center for Agricultural Conservation Assistance Training in partnership with NRCS and state agencies to build programs that prepare students to provide the exact type of technical assistance producers need is incredible.

Seeing the growth of these programs, it's hard not to be proud of that. The connection I have with Penn State is one that I feel is never going to go away.