Dr. Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, director of the Office of Science at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), spends much of her time communicating research. As a federal government leader, she emphasizes the importance of making science accessible to the general public. And she has some creative ways of doing so.

    Berhe shared her expertise last fall when she delivered the Global Change Center’s 2023 Distinguished Public Lecture at the Moss Arts Center. In her October 3 talk, “From the Ground Up: A Soil Scientist Goes to Washington, D.C.,” she spoke about her love of and fascination with soil and how her interests drive her research. She also shared some thoughts about communicating science.

    To make her research accessible, Berhe has employed a medium that all people can understand: comics. In a collaboration between Sequential Potential Comics and Berhe’s academic home, the Center for Humanities at the University of California, Merced, she developed a comic book titled, “What’s Soil Got to Do with Climate Change?” This 4-page document breaks down the basics of climate change in an easily digestible way.

This photo shows a speaker standing behind a podium on a stage. Also on view is a slide on a huge screen. "U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science" is visible on the slide.
Dr. Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, director of the Office of Science at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), spoke at Virginia Tech on October 3. Photo by Meg Luciani for Virginia Tech.

    The comic strip puts the spotlight on something little mentioned in the world of climate change: soil. It reads, “Rarely do people think of how the very ground beneath their feet plays an integral role in our global environmental crisis.” The strip uses colorful illustrations of the impacts and causes of climate change and explains how soil plays a vital role in our ability to combat this crisis through carbon sequestration (how carbon is stored in soil). Maintaining the health of the soil, we learn through the comic, impacts its ability to store the carbon. You can check out Berhe’s comic here.

A picture from Dr. Berhe's comic strip that shows in illustration different ways we can help our soil health and thus help our planet and the effects of climate change.
Dr. Berhe's illustrated story invites the reader to explore how people can help contribute to our planet's soil health to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and reverse land degradation. Full comic story available at https://aaberhe.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/berhe-soil-and-climate-change-comic-3.pdf.

    Berhe has also spoken on the TED stage, on National Public Radio, and to countless school kids in her quest to make climate science, especially with respect to soil, accessible to more people.

Written by Meg Luciani, Center for Communicating Science at VT intern