Women in STEM: Denison's Olivia Aguilar grows into passion for environmental studies

GRANVILLE – Olivia Aguilar finds it laughable she would end up a scientist. Or for that matter, that she would grow up to teach on a college campus. But that’s exactly what happened. She’s now an associate professor of environmental studies at Denison University.

“Ha, no!” she exclaimed when asked if she had an interest in environmental studies as a child. “Even though I was always outdoors and was probably one of the first kids in my school to start celebrating Earth Day, I had no idea what environmental studies was when I was a kid.”

Which makes actually teaching environmental studies even more surprising to her.

“Again, this makes me laugh,” she continued. “No way. I don’t think I even knew how to become a college professor.”

“I did have one college professor who helped plant a seed though,” she added. “She must have seen something in me, and she suggested I might like to pursue a career involving research. At the time, I thought she was crazy. But 20 years later, research is a big part of what I do and love.”

Olivia Aguilar, 41, grew up in Plano, Texas, a suburb just north of Dallas.

“My parents moved there from south Texas before I was born,” she said. “At the time, it was a small farm town, but soon after they moved, a lot of businesses created headquarters there. Luckily, I was able to benefit from a great school district.” 

She went to high school in Plano, received both a B.S. and M.S. in horticultural sciences from Texas A&M University, and then earned her Ph.D. in environmental education at Cornell University.

“I was the first in my family to go to college,” she said, “so I don’t think we had a lot of knowledge about the various career paths you could take with a degree. Essentially, we thought there were two paths: doctor or lawyer.” 

All that changed her sophomore year at Texas A&M.

“I was flipping through the jobs binder,” she recalled, “and saw a job that allowed you to work outside and work with kids. That sounded like a blast, so I looked into what kind of degree I would need for that job. Horticulture came up, so that’s when I decided to pursue a degree associated with the environment.” 

“Once I decided to pursue horticulture,” she continued, “I immediately ran into what I considered obstacles. I was going to have to take a lot of science courses. And since I entered into the major kind of late, I was going to have to take the sciences that were still available and open. This inevitably meant the more difficult of the science courses, which scared me.”

“But it turns out,” she added, “I could hold my own in these classes, and I actually grew to love the natural sciences. So I started thinking about how I could turn a love of plants and the outdoors into a love of science. That’s how I ended up teaching and then pursuing an advanced degree in environmental education.” 

In 2011, she came to Denison to teach a broad spectrum of ENVS courses.

“True to why I wanted to be in this field,” she explained, “I try to spend a lot of time with my students outside of the classroom. We take numerous field trips, and just generally try to use the outdoors as a classroom.

“Ultimately,” she concluded, “my hope is that these students will then go on and change the world for the better. Totally cheesy, but that’s what I love about this job.” 

About the series

This story is part of an ongoing Business Advocate series about women in STEM careers. If you have a story suggestion, email advocate@newarkadvocate.com.