“I talk about rocks for a living,” said Cate Larsen.
Even through a screen, Larsen’s enthusiasm for her work is contagious—viral, if you will. Hundreds of thousands of people follow the New York–based geocommunicator on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. For geologists, her posts hit the relatability-hilarity sweet spot. (Be honest: Who hasn’t licked a rock?) For everyone else, they are an invitation to discover our planet in a new way.
“I put forward content that I think is going to really engage people in this science that is really overlooked,” Larsen said.
It’s hard to imagine Larsen, who works under a playful 1970s-inspired yellow-, orange-, and blue–striped personal brand as The Groovy Geologist, being anything but a geologist. But her heart didn’t always beat for rocks. “I had no interest in Earth science. In high school, I was a space kid,” she recalled. That changed in the first class of the planetary geology course she took as a last resort for her astronomy major. Two lectures later, she’d switched majors.
Larsen earned her B.S. in geology at the State University of New York at Oneonta in 2020. Stuck in pandemic lockdown and unable to find an opportunity for grad school, she started making TikTok videos about geology. After a short clip about geologists’ casual attitude toward hydrochloric acid went viral (bit.ly/hydrochloric-acid-tiktok), she started making more and more videos.
“I love what I do. I love what I study. I love geology. And I love to teach people about it.”
Today she teaches geology to an audience of more than 632,000 people. She’s spoken at dozens of universities and libraries and even at Badlands National Park in South Dakota. She hosts a podcast, The Schist of It, that breaks down geology research papers, and a weekly livestream called “Rocks and Hops”: casual geology lessons featuring a different craft beer each month. Larsen also founded a network of other geocommunicators called AllGneiss and works for Geologize, a company that trains geoscientists to communicate with the public.
Up next for Larsen is grad school. She’s applying for master’s and Ph.D. programs, with the goal of eventually becoming a professor. An educator at heart, she wants to inspire students the way her geology professors inspired her. “I love what I do. I love what I study. I love geology. And I love to teach people about it,” she proclaimed.
—Elise Cutts (@elisecutts), Science Writer
This profile is part of a special series in our August 2024 issue on science careers.
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