With science, a visit to an old life

When Portland State Geology Professor Georg Grathoff was awarded a one-year guest professorship at the University of Goettingen, Germany in 2006, he was given an opportunity to rediscover a place that he once called home.

Grathoff, 44, received the Mercator Professorship via the German Federal Funding Agency and is an expert in the field of nano-minerals and clay minerals commonly present in soil, specifically studying the reaction of these minerals to time and climate change.

As a graduate of the University of Goettingen, Grathoff was expected to assist in bolstering a research program in nano-minerals; minerals that are about the equivalent of one-millionth of a millimeter in size. Grathoff stayed with his wife and two children in a residence near the university from August 2006 to August 2007.

The final component to Grathoff’s professorship at the prestigious German institute was organizing an international workshop about nano-minerals found in soil. Grathoff was joined by around 20 top geologists at the workshop, culminating a yearlong experience that allowed the accomplished scientist to relive a life he had left behind.

His guest professorship marked the first occasion since the falling of the Berlin Wall in 1989 that Grathoff had lived in Germany. Grathoff said he was completing his masters thesis during the initial stages of Germany’s unification and left for America to obtain his doctorate shortly after.

It had been nearly 18 years since Grathoff had explored Germany, but he found that the country was similar to the way he had left it.

“Germany had changed some,” Grathoff said, “but not a lot.”

Grathoff cited Germany’s emphasis was on recycling, rather than relations between West and East Germans, as the greatest transformation.

“Physically, there were more windmills and it seemed they were more environmentally conscientious, which wasn’t true before,” Grathoff said. “Waste reduction is also important now.”

Grathoff said that in Germany, plastic packaging is supposed to be returned to the store to be recycled. A product’s disposal cost is also factored into the price as a surcharge, so the consumers are responsible for maintaining the environment.

Grathoff spent his entire life Germany and the United States. He estimates he has lived about an equal amount in both countries, as he was born in the United States but moved back and forth five times.

The constant transitioning from one culture to another did not cause much trouble for Grathoff, though he recalls an instance when he moved back to America for high school.

“The biggest adjustment was when someone would ask, ‘How are you?'” Grathoff said. “I would actually stop and think about what I was doing. Then by the time I was ready to answer, the person would have walked away.”