Shavonna Bent is a “cold weather girl at heart.” She credits the Vermont winters of her childhood with helping her feel at home conducting field research on penguins in Antarctica. She works at a station close to the ocean and describes the summer days, which have lows in the 20s and highs in the 30s, as “balmy.”
How did Shavonna get from rural Vermont to a penguin colony on a remote Antarctic peninsula? With the support of a lot of adults who believed in her and helped her chart a course to achieve her childhood dream.
After graduating from Randolph Union High School in 2014, Shavonna got her undergraduate degree in Biology from the Johnson campus of Vermont State University (formerly Johnson State College) in 2018. She worked in an engineering position for a year before beginning her PhD program in Chemical Oceanography at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, which is affiliated with MIT. With her field research now complete, she’s currently writing her dissertation and will earn her degree this June.
Shavonna’s interest in oceanography started when she was young, when she always looked forward to her family’s annual summer visit to Falmouth, MA. She loved going out on the water and visiting the Woods Hole Science Aquarium, where she remembers seeing their research ship docked in the harbor and thinking, “how do I get on that boat?”
Her parents always supported this dream. Shavonna’s dad is a machinist and her mom is a bookkeeper, and she fondly recalls growing up “immersed in math.” But, as a first-generation college student, Shavonna and her family “found the college process overwhelming and murky.” That changed when Shavonna met Anne Kaplan, an Outreach Counselor with VSAC’s Talent Search program.
Anne helped Shavonna and her family navigate the entire college application and selection process, from showing them how to fill out FAFSA financial aid forms to helping Shavonna locate scholarship money. The VSAC Talent Search program also took Shavonna and other Talent Search students on college campus visits, helping them figure out in advance what kinds of questions to ask. Thanks to VSAC, Shavonna was able to complete college debt-free, which allowed her to pursue her PhD without having to worry about repaying loans.
Beyond financial aid and logistics, Shavonna also appreciated the deeply personal support. When they met one-on-one, Anne would ask, “What do you want to do and how do we get you there?” This belief in her ability, coupled with brass-tacks knowledge of the higher education system, were exactly what Shavonna needed to successfully pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees. And, as Shavonna is quick to point out, “Anne didn’t just do this for me and my academic track. She worked with everyone, listening to them and helping them figure out their own path.”
Anne wasn’t the only mentor who helped Shavonna chart her course. She had two amazing professors in college who did the same. Les Kanat, who is now the Dean of Science and Education at VTSU, met with her early on in her college career. Like Anne, he asked what her goals were and helped her make an undergraduate plan that would position her for graduate school. “The biggest benefit of going to a small school,” says Shavonna, “is that the faculty has the ability to work one-on-one with students to directly help them achieve their goals.”
After seeing her detailed lab notebook, Shavonna’s first biology professor, Liz Dolci, invited her to apply to an open lab position. As a result, Shavonna got to work with the Vermont Genetics Network on a project in an abandoned asbestos mine. The team researched whether the bacteria living in the mine’s heavy-metal-laden leech ponds had developed both antibiotic resistance and heavy metal resistance, which has implications for human medicine. The work gave Shavonna the chance to start developing the field research skills that would get her accepted to a National Science Foundation summer program at Woods Hole between her junior and senior year of college, and, later, to graduate school.
Today, Shavonna is almost literally on the boat of her childhood dreams. As part of her doctoral research, she has traveled three times from Punta Arenas, Chile, across the Drake Passage (a notoriously dangerous route), to Palmer Station, one of three U.S. research bases on the coast of Antarctica. The four-day boat ride crosses some of the toughest seas in the world, Shavonna says, but fortunately, she doesn’t get seasick.
She and her team studied how climate change is impacting the ecosystem of Antarctica’s Southern Ocean, a region that plays a critical role in removing carbon from the atmosphere. Penguin digestion provides important clues. As the warming climate raises ocean temperatures, the process changes the chemical makeup of the phytoplankton and krill populations. By eating and digesting these creatures, whales (who eat phytoplankton) and penguins (who eat krill) contribute valuable nutrients, including iron and lipids, to the waters of the Southern Ocean. Studying penguin and whale excrement provides valuable information about the health and nutrient balance of this carbon-neutralizing ecosystem.
Shavonna doesn’t quite know what will come after she completes her PhD in June, but she’s looking into field positions all over the country, and she trusts that her research experience has empowered her with lots of transferable skills. While there are a lot of penguins in Antarctica, there’s no hardware store, and only about 45 other people to depend on at Palmer Station. Shavonna has learned to be resourceful, and she says her end-to-end data stream work—collecting data in the field as well as processing and analyzing it later on—has given her a good appreciation for detail.
For now, Shavonna is busy writing the “Reflections” section of her dissertation. It’s allowing her to remember, and officially thank, the many people who helped her get where she is today. “I’m so grateful for all the adults in my life that saw my interests and helped this really excited kid get there,” Shavonna says. “Opportunities might not be as abundant in rural areas,” she says, “but you’ve got to be adventurous and bold. Go after what you want,” she advises others—even if it seems as remote as Antarctica.
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Read the story on VTDigger here: From Vermont to Antarctica, Shavonna Bent charts a course to a PhD in Chemical Oceanography.