Christopher Castro
From passing interest to passion
Chris Castro is an assistant professor
in the Department of Atmospheric Science, University
of Arizona. Castro is a UCAR SOARS alumnus.
(Photo courtesy University of Arizona.) |
Christopher Castro is proof of the value of a summer internship.
Castro always had what he calls a passing interest in weather.
He liked to watch the summer storms roll in from the west as
a boy in Oklahoma, and on a trip to Arizona as a teenager,
the monsoon rains "just fascinated the hell out of me," he
says. But he never thought of his hobby as a career path; he
was going to be a lawyer.
Castro’s father was an animal diagnostic virologist,
and his childhood was spent in a series of college towns with
veterinary schools: Stillwater, Oklahoma; Davis, California;
and State College, Pennsylvania. Castro chose Pennsylvania
State University largely because, with his dad on the faculty,
his costs were low. He enrolled as a pre-law major in 1993.
‘Jumping
into a pool without knowing how deep it is . . . was very
risky’
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A bend in the road
After his freshman year, his life took a different turn. He
spent that summer at an internship in the civil rights office
of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. "After working
there, I couldn’t see myself in that profession. I did
enjoy the people aspect, but law was not compatible with my
personality."
Now Castro needed a new career path, but he still wanted one
that was relevant to the problems of today’s world. "I
thought, why not do something that you’ve always had
a passing interest in and that still has a connection to society?" He
switched his major to meteorology, a decision he now compares
to "jumping into a pool without knowing how deep it is.
It was risky—very risky."
A year into his new major, he had a very different kind of
summer internship: UCAR’s Significant Opportunities in
Atmospheric Research and Science program, then in its second
year. SOARS gives college students from underrepresented population
groups the experience of life as a scientist. Each student,
known as a protégé, comes to NCAR or another
participating lab for research projects over the course of
three summers, with intensive mentorship guiding the protégé toward
graduate school and a science career.
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‘We
have to start working to build up an educated and professional
class of Hispanics in the physical sciences.’
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For Castro, the SOARS experience (along with his coursework)
had the opposite effect of the law internship: "I got
really passionate about climate and climate change." Castro
went on to graduate school at Colorado State University, where
his early brush with the summer monsoon grew into a research
interest.
Choosing a home
When he completed his Ph.D. in 2005, Castro says, "I
had the opportunity of several jobs, including coming back
to NCAR. I decided to come here [to Arizona]; I felt like this
was where I was most needed. I had the opportunity to be the
captain of the ship and to shape the ideas of my students instead
of being in a big group and having someone tell me what to
do. That’s the riskier path, but it’s more rewarding
in the end.
"Also," he points out, "from the social
perspective, a person like myself is important to have in a
job like this. In Arizona, the population is already about
25% Hispanic, and that segment is the most rapidly growing.
But I observe there is still a large socioeconomic and educational
disparity between Hispanics and other ethnic groups. This can
reinforce negative stereotypes and create barriers to educational
opportunities. We have to start working to build up an educated
and professional class of Hispanics in the physical sciences,
and this is a goal of SOARS. If I can bring students of Hispanic
background here, either from Arizona or from Mexico, that’s
doing a little bit to fight that problem."
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