Just a farm kid

As an adult sifting through a box of his school-age memorabilia, Marty St. Clair discovered that by the first grade, he already knew he wanted to be a scientist.

“My best printing said I want to be a geologist,” he says. “I had no, no idea why. I’m in the middle of nowhere northern Indiana. I’d never even known a scientist.”

His childhood was spent on his family’s farm of about 300 acres, mostly corn and soybeans. In his current role as a research scientist at IIHR managing the statewide water-quality network that collects real-time nitrate data, mostly from agricultural runoff, St. Clair relies on his farm upbringing. “I feel like it does help me understand where farmers come from.”

He also shares his time with the University of Iowa’s Center for Health Effects of Environmental Contamination (CHEEC), supporting and advancing research that studies the human impacts of exposure to environmental toxins.

Chemistry of love

St. Clair’s early interest in science stuck with him. Throughout high school, he was also involved in musicals. Each year’s music program left a paper trail of what St. Clair said he wanted to be when he grew up, from biology to biochemistry to chemistry — which is where his feet hit the ground. “When I got to college and started taking chemistry courses, I really liked it.”

St. Clair earned a Bachelor of Science in chemistry and environmental studies from Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana. He went to graduate school at the California Institute of Technology, where he met his wife, Cindy Strong, who was also studying chemistry.

“She knew what she wanted to do,” he says. “She wanted to teach at a small liberal arts college.” They eventually landed in Mt. Vernon, Iowa, where his wife has been a faculty member at Cornell College for 34 years.

Iowa connections

St. Clair began his career at the University of Iowa, teaching in the chemistry department for a semester before being offered a lab manager position in environmental engineering, where he stayed for three years.

“I had a great group of people to work with, and I would have been perfectly happy staying in that position,” says St. Clair. “But I really did like teaching.” He was also raising a young family at the time. It all combined to encourage St. Clair to search for other opportunities, which led him to a 30-year career at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, as a professor of analytical chemistry.

He later came back for a sabbatical at the University of Iowa, working with IIHR faculty research engineer and professor Michelle Scherer on environmental chemical pollutants research. “It was the most scientifically productive experience,” says St. Clair. “We got to be really good friends. So then I spent several other sabbaticals working in her lab and once with the Iowa Geological Survey.”

When St. Clair took early retirement from Coe, an opportunity to come back to the University of Iowa presented itself. He works with CHEEC and helps manage IIHR’s public-facing network of more than 70 real-time continuous nitrate sensors deployed across Iowa. “It’s been really gratifying to have my skills and background and previous relationships benefit and help strengthen these efforts.”

St. Clair joined IIHR in September 2023. “It’s exciting to be around people who are just really good at what they do.”

Follow your passion

Reflecting on his career, St. Clair says that following his passion to educate students has been the most rewarding. “Just to see and watch their careers is definitely a source of satisfaction,” he says. And the feeling must be mutual, as he’s been asked to officiate at three of his students’ weddings. During his time at Coe, he also helped to mentor a few students to pursue their master’s or PhD degrees with colleagues at Iowa.

In his free time, St. Clair enjoys reading and playing frisbee with his dog, Ivy. “If you can give joy to another creature, you should probably do it,” says St. Clair.

Reflecting on his first-grade aspirations, St. Clair says, “The next time I go to college, I’ll probably do geology.”