Fernandez has explored the ocean bottom in a submarine and traveled to the South Pole in Antarctica to support atmospheric research in the coldest, driest and windiest place on Earth.

In December, she returned to her alma mater to give a talk on her work at UC’s Environmental Justice and Advocacy Symposium.

Fernandez grew up in the northwest suburbs of Chicago not far from Lake Michigan. She enrolled at UC after applying for a student research opportunity focused on the Great Lakes.

“I love the Great Lakes, so that’s what interested me in coming to UC,” she said. “I was interested in water chemistry and greenhouse gases mixing together. I saw that Professor Amy Townsend-Small had a posting for a student to study methane on Lake Erie.”

Today, Fernandez is a flight scientist and atmospheric methane researcher. She lives in Boulder, Colorado, working in the oil and gas industry. At Scientific Aviation, Inc., she measures methane emissions from oil and gas facilities and landfills.

Fernandez has always been interested in the natural world. She studied oceanography at California State Polytechnic University and earned a doctorate in geology and earth science at the University of London, followed by a postdoctoral position at the University of Maryland studying rare methane isotopes.

At UC, she earned a master’s degree in geology from the College of Arts and Sciences, where she took advantage of UC’s top-rated co-op program to get an internship with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. She would take an airboat to test water for oxygen levels, calcium and E. coli along the northern Mississippi River, even when it was completely frozen over.

“We’d bring an auger to break through the ice,” she said. “Even in the winter, we could get to inaccessible areas with the airboat.”

The internship helped her pay off some of her undergraduate student loans. 

“Getting to go to school and getting paid — that was cool,” she said.

Fernandez got the Army Corps internship through the federal Pathways Internship Program, which provides opportunities for early-career scientists.

“It is an outstanding opportunity and I would love for more UC students to take advantage of it,” professor Townsend-Small said. “Students or recent graduates can participate in internships at federal agencies and it's a ‘pathway’ or a transition to a permanent federal job.”

Fernandez said she learned a lot about troubleshooting electronics while retrieving and deploying the water measurement devices every couple weeks.

“Trying to get something to work that doesn’t work was the fun part. It was really boring when they did work,” she said. “I learned to communicate with the instrument companies and troubleshoot with them.”

For her master’s project, she accompanied the Canadian Coast Guard onto Lake Erie to take water samples.

“Lake Erie is divided between Canada and the U.S. international border. And the regulations in each are different,” she said. “In Canada they have pipelines to harness natural gas below the lake. In the United States, that is not allowed. The northern part of Lake Erie is covered in well heads. So comparing the two to see if those wells were contributing to atmospheric methane was interesting.”

She joined the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to serve as chief atmospheric scientist at the South Pole. She traveled from New Zealand to McMurdo Station off the coast of Antarctica, home to Adelie penguins and 90% of the world’s ice.

From there she boarded a plane with skids for landing gear, landing on the ice at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station more than 800 miles inland.

“It really is the most remote place in the world — more remote even than the International Space Station,” she said.

Winter temps there dip to minus 45 degrees.

“The U.S. Antarctic Program clothing distribution center equips you with cold weather gear: coat, snow pants, gloves, hats, goggles,” she said.

Once there, she said the most remarkable thing is how featureless the landscape is. The ice meets the horizon in every direction.

Arguably, her posting in Antarctica wasn’t even her most extreme scientific endeavor.

At UC, Fernandez applied to the National Science Foundation to take part in an expedition aboard Alvin, the deep-ocean submarine that explorer Bob Ballard used to study the wreckage of the Titanic some 12,500 feet underwater.

She completed weeks of training at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and in Rhode Island to learn about the sub and its complicated communications systems.

There, she met Ballard and was mentored by the sub’s first female pilot, Cindy Lee Van Dover.

Then it was time to dive.

“I think for some people it was scary. I get more excited,” Fernandez said.

The sub is launched from a research vessel called the Atlantis with just three crew: the pilot and two scientists. 

“It’s pretty cramped in there. There are three windows in front and two on the sides,” she said. “I noticed how cold it gets as you go down. And it gets dark pretty quickly.”

Alvin descended into the murky depths, dropping 4,200 feet or 1,300 meters below the surface of the North Atlantic Shelf.

A strobe light on Alvin triggered a response from bioluminescent marine life — tiny marine animals that can generate their own light.

“It’s pitch black, but you see this rainfall of organisms. It’s almost like a dream,” she said. “I always thought the water column was empty in the deep sea, but there are all these little creatures.”

Fernandez took water samples at newly discovered hydrothermal vents covered in clamshells on the ocean floor. Her family back home got to share her experience through a livestream of the dive.

When Fernandez looks back on her time at UC, she is most grateful for the mentorship of Townsend-Small.

“She has continued to be my academic mentor even after I left UC and I consider her to be a close friend,” Fernandez said. “Still to this day, she is a very supportive person in my life.”

Fernandez is mulling a return to Antarctica to continue her research. In the meantime, she is weighing the many options available to her.

“I’m thinking more long term: where do I want to live? I used to move every year. For the first time, I haven’t done that,” she said.

Her advice to geosciences students: apply for opportunities they find interesting even if they think they might be beyond their reach.

“Don’t let self-doubt get in the way. We often don’t see the full potential others see in us,” she said. “You don’t need all the skills listed on an application — those can be taught — but you do need the right interests, care and passion to be successful.”

Featured image at top: UC graduate Julianne Fernandez was chief atmospheric scientist at the South Pole for the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. Photo/Provided

Beyond the Classroom