KU News Release

Charity M. Phillips Lander

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More Information

• Department of Geology
• Military Spouse magazine

LAWRENCE — A University of Kansas doctoral student whose childhood interest in dinosaurs and volcanoes helped distract her from the threat of homelessness is competing for the title of Military Spouse of the Year.

Navy Lt. Geoffrey Lander nominated his wife, Charity M. Phillips Lander, a doctoral student in geobiology at KU, for the title. Conducted by Military Spouse magazine, voting is under way until Feb. 10 to select the top candidate from each military branch.

To vote, go to www.msoy.milspouse.com. Winners for each branch will be announced March 1. After another round of voting, from March 1 to 19, the overall winner will be announced in May.

Lander’s husband is a training officer for the Maritime Civil Affairs and Security Training Command at the Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base in Norfolk, Va. The couple talks daily by phone and meets when their schedules permit. They met online while she was working on a master’s degree at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. They have been married five years.

Charity Lander has a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship in K-12 Education, a $5,000 merit-based research grant from Exxon Mobil, and a $22,000 Patterson Fellowship from geology department funds with KU Endowment.

She chose KU in part because of the program in geobiology — the study of microbes and their interactions in geologic systems — and because of two KU faculty members who are now her research advisers. David A. Fowle, associate professor of geology specializing in geomicrobiology, understood Lander’s interest in volcanoes. Jennifer A. Roberts, associate professor of geology, reflected Lander’s own sense of being a fierce and feminine geologist in a field long dominated by men. With Fowle and Roberts, Lander is researching microbial life in volcanic hot springs in Costa Rica.

In elementary school, Lander learned about Hawaiian volcanoes by watching a PBS video she checked out from the local library.

“There was something about the bright streams of red and orange lava pouring into the ocean and being in instantly transformed into black pillow lavas that captivated me,” she said. “Ever since then, I have been drawn to projects involving volcanism, from the Mirdita ophiolite, which is Jurassic ocean crust, during my master’s research, to Rincon de la Vieja in Costa Rica now.”

Her childhood involved moving often, sometimes without belongings. Her mother suffers from a mental illness and divorced when Lander was 7 years old.

“We went from a pretty comfortable working-class existence to living in lots of places, from the projects to other people’s homes,” Lander said.

She credits churches with helping her mother find housing outside of the projects.

Both of her parents earned college degrees. Books, especially on dinosaurs and volcanoes, provided Lander refuge from rough neighborhoods and instability. Education became a personal priority. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and a master’s at Miami University. She also tutored her sister, helping her to get into college. Lander is the oldest of four children — a sister from her parents’ marriage and two more from her father’s second marriage.

As an NSF fellow, she works to inspire a new generation of scientists. The program partners graduate students with science teachers to develop inquiry based research for the classroom. Lander is assigned to Olathe North High School’s 21st Century Program in geoscience, and she works with science teacher Brandon Gillette.

The Olathe North students are looking at the impact of urban development on water quality. When weather permits, Lander will help them collect water samples and eventually plot their data with Geographic Information System spatial mapping software.

“Water quality is an easy way for the kids to relate chemistry and geology to their lives,” Lander said.

She hopes to bring some of the Olathe North students to KU to visit labs in the Multidisciplinary Research Building.

Working with Steven B. Case, associate director of KU’s Center for Science Education, Lander also teaches a research methods class for UKanTeach students. UKanTeach is a collaborative program of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the School of Education that helps KU students earn math and science degrees, along with teaching licensure, in four years.

In nominating his wife, Geoffrey Lander wrote that she “provides a unique perspective on the modern military spouse.”

He continued, “She has a deep commitment to science and education … and she believes she has a duty and a stewardship not to just serve within the military community, but to also serve as a shining example of the strength, intelligence and fortitude of military families to the rest of the world. She seeks to inspire people every day to do better, to be more, to reach higher and serve longer.”