Elizabeth White Uses Talents to Help Others


Elizabeth White

Elizabeth White

Elizabeth White has taken a long and winding path in her educational journey through different institutions and majors, but the core of what she wanted to do never changed – to help people.

White started at Eastern Michigan University in 2015 as an education major. After leaving EMU for health reasons, she attended the University of Toledo and then took various online courses at other community colleges.

She came to Owens as a biology major, but thanks to the encouragement of Owens adjunct instructor Scott Deaner and her experience at an American Association of Geographers (AAG) convention, she found her true calling in geography.

“By helping people, you make a mark on their lives,” White said. “Everybody knows Einstein, but do you really know anything about Einstein? You hear people talk about who influenced their lives and they know so much more about them.

“At the end of the day, all we want to do as humans is connect with other humans. Connecting with people has been the biggest thing my family has taught me. When you can, help and use your God-given talent. This is my talent and I want to help people.”

White will graduate in the Owens Community College Fall 2024 commencement with an Associate Degree in Geography Transfer Pathway. Her work inside and outside of the classroom led to her receiving the Gerald Bazer Award for the Outstanding Arts and Sciences graduate.

At the same time White is completing her bachelor’s degree for a May graduation at Toledo, she will begin working on her master’s degree thanks to a university program that allows students to begin graduate-level classes while still an undergrad.

White said the first eight years of being a college student went slowly, but her time at Owens has “changed my life.”

“It was the first time I had professors who took an interest in me,” White said. “Without Owens, without Scott Deaner, without Cy Keiffer, without them, I don’t know if I would be a biology student, but I wouldn’t be this close to graduating.”

Not only did White get to attend the AAG conferences, including one in Hawaii, but she also presented her research on Fukushima, Japan. Her research centers around the recovery and migration aspects of Fukushima, which suffered a cataclysmic earthquake and tsunami in 2011 that led to the partial meltdowns of three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. She is trying to determine who has returned to the area and who has not, and why.

“Focusing on that has helped me understand my educational aspirations,” White said. “There are people who want to solve climate change and get world peace, and that’s good, we need people working on that. That stresses me out because it’s such a big, broad thing.

“Fukushima, Japan, might be halfway around the world, but it’s still a small community that went through something terrible. … If we can learn something from Japan, how people recover and what choices they make, then we can take that information into disasters here.”

White is working on a project that will send a small satellite into near-Earth orbit to measure the variables in the harmful algal bloom in western Lake Erie. She’s also working as a salaried employee at a steel company and applying for various NASA internships.

It’s proof that geography is more than just maps, which might be a good thing because White couldn’t have imagined her journey.

“We’re a degree of discovery, and I’m a testament to that,” White said.

Learn more about the Geography Transfer Pathway, AA >>
Learn more about the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences >>
Learn more about the School of Liberal Arts >>

Published December 2024