Profiles in Teaching: Martha Torstenson ’18 on researching and teaching environmental change

Martha Torstenson ’18 spends a lot of time thinking about big-picture issues while researching and teaching environmental problems like global warming, land-use change, and pollution. At the same time, she always makes it a priority to view the issues through a more personal lens.

While teaching BIOL 210: Global Change Biology as a visiting instructor at Carleton this past winter, Torstenson focused on exposing her students to environmental issues and ideas, but also on helping connect those issues to their own lives. In her words, “What do you care about and how can you use biology to understand it more and respond?”

While science is often focused on objectivity, “people don’t just accidentally end up being ecologists,” Torstenson said. “People get into doing this work because they care. I wanted to show that you can integrate your identity and background with biology.”

Returning to Carleton to teach Global Change Biology was a full-circle moment for Torstenson; one that recalls her own process of finding her place in ecology. A math major at Carleton, she took the course herself as a student after attending a lecture on mathematical ecology while studying abroad at the University of Oslo in Norway.

“I was like, ‘That exists? That’s so crazy!’ I care so much about the environment, and I like doing math, so this is where I should be,” she said.

Once she returned to Carleton after studying abroad, Torstenson took Global Change Biology with Daniel Hernández, professor of biology.

“I learned so much, and then I spent the rest of my time at Carleton taking as many ecology classes as I could and getting involved in research experiences,” she said. 

After graduating, Torstenson remained immersed in the field of global change. She spent a year teaching math at the Conserve School, a high school program focused on conservation, and then traveled to Norway to research arctic climate change for a Fulbright fellowship. 

Torstenson is currently in the fifth year of her PhD program at the University of Minnesota. She uses mathematical models to study how animal migration affects responses to climate change and how migration shapes pathogen evolution.

“When the opportunity to teach Global Change Biology [at Carleton] came up, it was really exciting,” she said, “because the course was so formative in my academic development, by being exposed to these major environmental issues and getting some insight into the [classic college senior question], ‘Where can I put myself?’”

Torstenson has integrated some of the perspectives gained from her research into the course, such as the importance of models in ecology and how to think in systems. 

“People don’t often imagine ecology as a mathematical discipline, but mathematical models are a useful way to understand complex systems and processes,” she said, “so practicing thinking that way is a lot of what we do.”

Given the magnitude of many current environmental problems, facing those issues every day can be emotionally challenging, something Torstenson often thinks about and discussed with her students during class. 

“You can learn these topics and just be sad or anxious about the world, and some days in my research, that’s how I feel,” she said. “One of my approaches is just to get it out there that that’s a normal response to this. I also try to emphasize points where all kinds of people, through their actions, have made a difference.” 

“I presented this Robin Wall Kimmerer quote, where she talks about choosing joy and choosing reciprocity,” she added. “A wounded world is still feeding us and a wounded world is still bringing joy every day. So to be joyful is just returning the gift… You can be sad and you can be anxious, but you should try to not be alone in that, and think, ‘What can I do to help?’”

For Torstenson, teaching is a powerful way to make an impact. 

“Teaching here and now, I get to engage with parts of global change biology that aren’t in my research and think more broadly,” she said. “It’s also great to watch learning happen and see people put pieces together.”

While Torstenson has had her own process of connecting her passions with her environmental concerns and finding a place in her field, teaching continues to inspire her. 

“There are so many Carleton students that go out and do cool things in the world and are just smart, interesting, engaged people that care,” she said. “What is the knowledge that I can give them to facilitate that awesomeness?”