Nebraska Women in STEM talked to Emily Rose Seifferlein about her road from geological research to teaching high school science.
“I love my job,” says Emily Rose Seifferlein, a science teacher in the Science Focus Program at Lincoln Public Schools.
Growing up in a very small town in Michigan, Emily’s dad was a teacher and later a principal, and her mother worked in special education. However, when Emily entered college, she didn’t plan to become an educator, like her parents. As she considered her options at Central Michigan University, she wanted to go into science and gravitated to geology.
“The cool thing about studying geology is I got to go everywhere. I got to see the country and learn in the field,” said Emily of the geology trips she attended while in college. Many times, Emily was the only woman on these trips, especially in undergrad.
While still in college, she credits her parents for her perseverance and laying the groundwork for her to be whoever she wanted to be. Her mom was especially a role model as an Occupational Therapist with an advanced degree at a time when most women were in traditional jobs. Both her parents were also the first in their families to go to college.
In her junior and senior year, she began feeling a pull into education. She found a master’s program at Wright State University that would allow her to continue to do geologic research while dipping her toes into educational experiences.