A Sturgis Alum Out in Africa

Mathew Chamberlain, a 2009 Sturgis Graduate and current Senior at Northeastern University

By Anna Campbell, staff reporter

Here at Sturgis, we constantly hear from teachers and other authority figures that the school, and the I.B. will help us in life; and not only through college, but preparing us for any difficult achievements. Most of us have probably wondered at some point after pulling an all-nighter to write an essay or enviously watching students at other schools glide through easy classes with straight As, where is the proof?

  So finally we found a case study: Mathew Chamberlain, an alum just completed his scientist on a research trip in Africa. He began his sojourn in the first weeks of early September, 2011, and unexpectedly returned in the last week of October. Mat is a fourth-year physics major at Northeastern, and before your eyes glaze over at the mere mention of physics, he has been doing some pretty fascinating research. After graduating Sturgis and attending Northeastern, Mat has traveled to Zambia and Botswana, Africa, with a co-op from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) to detect naturally occurring electromagnetic fields in the Earth’s surface. Electromagnetic fields are physical fields produced by moving electrically charged objects. They are one of the four fundamental forces of nature; their importance to science is something Chamberlain has been studying. Chamberlain got together with WHOI after his co-op advisor at Northeastern’s job database sent his resume to WHOI. “We connect because we have a passion for science and we want to do field work,” Chamberlain said of his relationship with the WHOI scientists.

   WHOI is in Africa to measure electromagnetic waves that occur from the interaction of the solar wind and the earth’s magnetic field, Chamberlain explains. The scientists measure the intensity of the electric and magnetic field in three components using magnetometers, electrodes and coils and then forward model the rock layers. If the rock layer are very conductive it might indicate that the East Africa Rift extends south into the continent. The East Africa Rift is important for seismologists trying to understand the flow of partial melt. In other words, the tectonic plates making up the continents are slowly but steadily shifting, and Chamberlain is analyzing the possible consequences of the rift.

   While understandably, thinking about how the earth moves occupied a great part of his time, Chamberlain has been known to come back to his roots at Sturgis. Jeff Hyer, who is the former CAS advisor and is a well-beloved history teacher - though admittedly something of a relic by now - can testify to Chamberlain’s visits now and then and says Mat has really applied his talents well.

Chamberlain for his own part credits Sturgis with giving him confidence in his ability. Although the interview was conducted over email, and sarcasm doesn’t translate very well over HTML, I found some evidence of humor in his answers. “Sturgis is the foundation of my intellectual swagger,” Chamberlain says of how his experience at Sturgis prepared him for the research trip. After taking H.L. math and physics, the very thought of which makes me wince in horror, Chamberlain was more prepared than most college graduates to write a 26,000-word science blog in two months while working in Africa.

   The blog itself reads easily, and the reader is drawn in by Chamberlain’s natural prose, which reflects on his meeting local villagers as well as guides in Zambia. His titles range from the trivial: “CONSTANT CAR TROUBLES;” and to the philosophical: “DO YOU BELIEVE IN GOD?” He notes that he has popularized the thumbs-up signal in several remote signals. Though often couched in understated wit, the places he travels to are often dangerous, and he recounts the hazards as well as humor in traveling. His attitude towards the villagers and tour guides is empathetic, not patronizing, and in his experience, most Africans are genuinely friendly people. He describes how he would sometimes meet a person in a situation that an American would see as devastating, nightmarish at the least - they were starving, stranded or detained without representation - and how they normally took it in stride. Since this is the norm, he explains, many of them are very laid-back about it. They appreciated what they had, and he says that most of the people he talked to would always enjoy a conversation about life under the shade of a date palm tree. Chamberlain is all too aware of his own advantages, and grateful to them.The experience of going to Africa paints a picture of how life is for people in many third-world countries. He has seen villagers beg for water, clothes and books.  “I can imagine what they would do to have a Sturgis,” he notes. “Sturgis drives me to know I am capable of achieving more than I believe I can.”

   Although Chamberlain’s impressive resume may seem effortlessly intimidating for currents students (like us) who wonder how to survive the next exam on Red Bull and M&Ms, he is modest in discussing his accomplishments in academia. He also acknowledges that Sturgis played a part in shaping his future. And isn’t that what we are all here for? Sturgis, Chamberlain observes, clearly paves a successful road to college. And though his outlook is balanced, like a good Sturgis student, he looks ahead, not to the past. After eight weeks on a research trip, he had planned on backpacking in South Africa with a colleague. However, denied entry to South Africa because he had no proof of his vaccination for yellow fever, Chamberlain recently returned to America. He plans on sending his pictures and videos to Northeastern for his blog, finding an apartment for next year, and working on a one-dimensional inversion code for MT data in a Matlab Graphic User Interface, or GUI, which is the design of the graphical component of a program to make it easier to use (. He will also be going on a research cruise in the South Pacific on Columbia’s vessel the Langseth, spanning from the middle of November to the beginning of January, again with WHOI (at this point our reporter was overcome with jealousy). He will then be in Boston for a semester of classes. After that, who knows?

   The story of Mat Chamberlain is an intriguing one, full of complex words and physics we don’t understand. One can argue that it can be simplified to that old Dr. Seuss title which so many seniors overuse in their ‘quotes’ section of the yearbook: “Oh, The Places You’ll Go!” In Chamberlain’s case the overwrought phrase has certainly proved true. And after this year, who knows where he’ll go?

Read Mat's Blog