{"id":12219,"date":"2025-04-21T07:17:15","date_gmt":"2025-04-21T12:17:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin-new\/?post_type=campus_story&p=12219"},"modified":"2025-04-21T07:17:15","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T12:17:15","slug":"exceeding-her-own-expectations-uw-eau-claire-geology-major-lyndsie-vickers","status":"publish","type":"campus_story","link":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/story\/exceeding-her-own-expectations-uw-eau-claire-geology-major-lyndsie-vickers\/","title":{"rendered":"Exceeding her own expectations: UW-Eau Claire geology major Lyndsie Vickers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Creating a vision of our future beyond the familiar in our world can be a challenge.<\/p>\n

For Lyndsie Vickers, a high school trip to a Future Farmers of America conference in her native Oklahoma provided her a whole new career vision.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Vickers presented as part of a group project on water filtration systems, a key element of farming in her state. A judge later asked what she wanted to do for a career.<\/p>\n

\u201cI pointed to our filtration system and said that I wished I could do \u2018that\u2019 for a job,\u201d Vickers responded. \u201cBut I figured I\u2019d become a science teacher \u2014 the only job I knew about for science lovers like I was.\u201d<\/p>\n

The judge explained to Vickers about the various careers in hydrogeology \u2014 the study of the distribution, movement and quality of water beneath the earth\u2019s surface. She learned the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire was one of seven universities in the U.S. to offer an undergraduate degree in hydrogeology. She applied to all seven.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was offered a Blugold Fellowship, giving me the chance to begin collaborative research with faculty in my first year, so it was an easy decision to enroll at UWEC,\u201d says Vickers, now a junior in the geology department. \u201cI made the right choice.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Discovering an academic focus through research<\/h2>\n
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Lyndsie Vickers doing fieldwork in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for a minerology and petrology class in 2023.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Beginning her studies in the geology department was eye-opening in many ways. Vickers says she was advised to explore the list of student research projects, shadow students for a few days and find a project that she would be interested in joining.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came in as a hydrogeology major, but through shadowing a senior who was working on a bunch of projects, I discovered hard rock geology, another field I knew nothing about,\u201d Vickers says. \u201cI loved it and ended up taking over one of his projects when he graduated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Robert Lodge, associate professor of geology and environmental science and the faculty mentor for the project Vickers took over in 2023, was immediately impressed with Vickers\u2019 curiosity, work ethic and swiftly advancing knowledge.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis project is mapping the Precambrian bedrock exposed in the remote parts of the Eau Claire River and revising the geologic history of the Lake Superior region,\u201d Lodge says. \u201cIt required her to do mapping, geochronology and geochemistry, all concepts from classes she hadn\u2019t yet taken.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe handled it all better than any of my senior students ever had, and she later won an award for presenting that research at the 2024 Institute of Lake Superior Geology Annual Meeting in Houghton, Minnesota.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vickers\u2019 current 2025 research project is what Lodge classifies as \u201cheavy concepts, much more akin to graduate-level research.\u201d<\/p>\n

The work, he says, is essentially \u201crewriting the geologic history of Wisconsin\u201d and discovering some of the oldest rocks ever documented in this part of the state. The project will be presented at the 2025 Society for Geology Applied Mineral Deposits Biennial Meeting in Golden, Colorado, and at the 2025 Institute of Lake Superior Geology Meeting in Mountain Iron, Minnesota.<\/p>\n

\u201cI foresee Lyndsie making major contributions to the field and building an outstanding publication record by the time she graduates,\u201d Lodge says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Career goals in economic geology<\/h2>\n
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Vickers and fellow students on the three-week GEOL Field Camp 1 experience in January in New Mexico.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Vickers says that through the research projects in hard rock geology, she has become very interested in economic geology and plans to pursue a master\u2019s degree in that field.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to work in the field of metallic mining,\u201d she says. \u201cThe things we use in our daily lives often contain metals, metals that must come from somewhere. As an economic geologist, I would find and map the deposits of these metals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vickers worked last summer as an intern for a Minnesota mining company called Talon Metals, a nickel-copper-cobalt exploration and development project. With an invitation to return as an intern for summer 2025, Vickers feels confident in her goal of building a career in the Upper Midwest.<\/p>\n

Companies like Talon Metals that provide meaningful internship opportunities are essential to career preparation of geology students at UWEC, and the benefits are clearly mutual, according to Vickers\u2019 internship supervisor, Eric Swanson.<\/p>\n

\u201cTalon’s summer internships illustrate the importance of building strong bonds between industry and academia,\u201d Swanson says. \u201cThe mining profession as a whole benefits from these types of relationships as they are a practical pathway for knowledge and skill transfers between the students like Lyndsie and more seasoned industry professionals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vickers says she\u2019s grateful for the chance to return to a second summer job in this resource-rich area, diving yet deeper into the field she plans to pursue after graduation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a beautiful part of the country, and there are many great economic geology projects happening in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan,\u201d Vickers says. \u201cIt\u2019s a real boom going on here with respect to natural resources, along with a strong focus on environmentally conscious practices. That\u2019s important to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI come from a place where young girls are not generally expected or encouraged to go far in fields like science,\u201d Vickers says. \u201cI\u2019m so lucky to have chosen this place where I\u2019ve met nothing but support, high expectations and encouragement at every turn \u2014 it\u2019s been amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Written by UW-Eau Claire<\/p>\n

Link to original story: https:\/\/www.uwec.edu\/stories\/exceeding-her-own-expectations-geology-major-lyndsie-vickers<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Creating a vision of our future beyond the familiar in our world can be a challenge. For Lyndsie Vickers, a high school trip to a Future Farmers of America conference in her native Oklahoma provided her a whole new career vision. Vickers presented as part of a group project on water filtration systems, a key […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":12222,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","institution":[96],"story_category":[],"class_list":["post-12219","campus_story","type-campus_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","institution-uw-eau-claire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story\/12219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/campus_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12219"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"institution","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/institution?post=12219"},{"taxonomy":"story_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story_category?post=12219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}