Celebrating the power of possibility.
I'm Clarice Phelps and I believe anything is possible.
Welcome to Anything is Possible. These are great stories about great people whose lives prove that anything is possible.
And in this position I've had this wonderful opportunity. I run into so many people who say,
wait until you hear this story. And that's how I got to you.
I was talking to people and they were like, you do realize that there is a young dynamic engineer out at the lab and she helped discover a new element on the periodic table.
And I said, huh? Clarice Phelps, thanks for being on Anything is Possible.
Thank you for having me.
So you grew up in, if I follow my notes properly, you were born in Minneapolis, but you grew up in Nashville, Tennessee.
Yes.
And you're an amazing scientist. How do we get from there to here and what was it like?
Well, you know, we grew up in the projects in Nashville and thankfully right across the street was the library.
And so we would always go to the library and the librarians knew us as Carmen's kids.
And we always would check books out and bring them home.
And so I was just really fascinated with all the stories and all the things that I could kind of lose myself in.
And then we had this set, I usually call it the Internet of My Day, the late 80s.
It was the set of Encyclopedias.
And so I would love looking through the Encyclopedias and, you know, they had some of the pages that were like really shiny.
Oh, yeah, yeah. That's the world book.
Yeah, the world book.
It had the overlays. I trust me. I'm a nerd.
Yeah, I love the world book Encyclopedia.
And I would go and I'd look through and I'd read, you know, little stories and stuff.
But I just didn't see a lot of, you know, people that looked like me in them.
And I just wondered why that was.
But outside of that, you know, I was always very tinkery.
And, you know, and even to this day, I love doing like crafts.
My hobby is picking up hobbies.
So I used to like do little experiments in the kitchen with things that I probably shouldn't be mixing together.
But I wanted to see what happened. So I was curious.
So you're growing up in the projects.
You said we.
Yeah.
And what's your we.
So I'm the second of actually six, but my mom and dad, they had four between them two.
And then my dad went on to have three more children.
And so it was my older sister, me, and then my two younger sisters and my mom.
Where did you find this incredible love of learning?
Because if you live in the projects and there's a library across the street,
there's probably many other things across the street that are not a library.
You track to the library, which means you had some kind of love of learning or it was a safe space or both.
Yeah, it was a love of learning. I love to read books.
Who started you on that?
I don't know. Like my mom, she always had books.
Like she's always had lots of books.
And even though we weren't into the kind of books that she read, she would always get us books.
I love the smell of books, just trying to see how far I could read in a day.
And I like the stories, because I loved the Black Stallion series and Dr. Doolittle.
And so I would just like eat those books up because it was fun.
Was your childhood great, difficult, somewhere in between?
I would say it was pretty good.
I mean, I don't think I realized, as an adult now, I don't think I realized how hard my mom had it
and how she shielded us from all of that.
And so, I mean, we never went without a meal.
We always had clothes, you know, and we were always, you know, sheltered.
So we had a good childhood.
I'm a nerd. I tell people this all the time.
I suspect that you are...
Oh, yeah, I'm a nerd.
You are a nerd.
I love it all.
My definition of a nerd is simply someone who never found the off switch to their curiosity.
I took things apart to see how they worked.
I wanted to know how they worked.
I wanted to know how everything worked.
I was fascinated.
I was curious.
But that only works if you are in a space where that fascination is affirmed and that curiosity is fueled.
Yeah.
Do you ever think about the fact that your mother left space for both?
She probably did.
Maybe because she had three other kids, you know, the space was kind of there
because she might have been dealing with other children.
But, you know, my mom, she had to work like third shift a lot.
So we would kind of be left to our own divide.
And this is the 80s, y'all.
So this, you know, we could be by ourselves overnight.
So we would like do a lot of things while she wasn't there.
But when she was there, she did those things with us.
And so there was this book, the Make and Do book.
It was like a bunch of little experiments and stuff and crafts that you could do.
And so we did all of those things in there because it was creative.
It was, you know, we didn't have all the newest toys and stuff like that.
So, I mean, you can take what you have and try to do something with it.
I like the even the title of that book, Make and Do.
Yeah.
And then you make do, right?
Yeah.
Make do.
What you have.
Right.
I like this.
Possibility powered by Covenant Health, Home Federal, and the Knoxville News Sentinel.
I like subjects.
So I like science.
And I had really good teachers that kind of nurtured that.
And I just so happened to do well in science.
Now,
Why did you like science?
Because it allowed me to ask questions like science is nothing but like you have to ask
questions and you want to know why.
And there's never an end to the questions.
And so, you know how little kids like, but why, but why, but why, but that's kind of like
how our brains work.
We want to know why and how things happen and try to solve those problems.
And so, like you said, you took apart your, you know, things I would take apart.
And even now, like with my kids toys, I'll take it apart, even though I know it might
not work when I put it back together, but I want to know what's inside of it.
So I still like to know why and how things work.
So your curiosity is satisfied in science because there's a lot to be curious about.
And then you're surrounded by teachers that go, oh, I like this.
So you go through high school and you're tracking on the science track.
What kind of grades were you make?
I made good grades in science.
I still, I did not do well in like, like math and really.
Yes. Oh, and you know what? That's why they make calculators.
Okay. So then, and a lot of the math that I use now is, is, is, you know, very simplified, you know,
but I didn't do well in math and like physics.
I actually, yeah, calculus. Oh God.
Yeah.
You do realize you have a master's degree and you're working on a PhD and like nuclear engineering stuff.
And I have to have help.
I have to have help, especially when it comes to the math part.
I have to, if I do the problem, I have to have somebody, you know, check it and make sure that I'm doing it right.
Because I, you know, I know math is a big part of, big part of it.
So I don't want to make any mistakes.
So you're going through and you're making great grades in science.
You finish high school and you decide to do what, what, what did you think you were going to do with this?
Is this just a general curiosity or was the arrow aimed at a target?
No, the arrow wasn't aimed at a target.
I, I really didn't have a concrete plan.
You know, you asked some high school students, oh, I'm going to go to college.
I'm majoring in this and I'm going to go on and be a doctor, lawyer, whatever.
I didn't really have an idea what I wanted to do.
I knew, I still knew I liked science and so I decided to major in chemistry.
But after college, I was like, I don't know, go work in a lab.
I really didn't have like a, a clear idea of what it is that I wanted to do.
So that kind of led me to not doing anything.
So I didn't do like internships.
Nothing.
I didn't do anything.
You're just sitting.
I was just going to class and I was getting my grades and I mean, I worked under my graduate advisor,
senior year to work on my like senior thesis, but that was about it.
And so when I graduated, I had no experience, like no like real world experience.
So I usually tell people don't do that.
My notes say you end up on an aircraft carrier.
You were in, you're a veteran.
Yes.
You're in the Navy from not knowing to please fill in this gap.
Okay.
So this gap.
So I literally like, I literally wrote down on a piece of paper side A and side B, all
these places that I was going to apply to.
And I went and I crossed them all off.
Nobody, you know, well, there was one place that was hiring, but I was like, okay, yeah,
that's, I can't work for that amount of money.
And the other option was go to the military, like literally option B was go to the military.
So I had exhausted all of my options on, you know, side A and I was like, well, I'll go
to the military and I attested into the naval nuclear power program.
And so that's what I decided to do.
Nothing about nuclear at the time.
So you're on an aircraft carrier.
Were you on the Ronald Reagan?
Yes.
I was on the USS Ronald Reagan CVN 76.
So you're on an aircraft carrier.
You're a woman.
You're a woman of color.
This had to be, you're on another planet.
Yeah.
The department, like reactor department was pretty big because you have two nuclear reactors.
So you need a lot of people.
However, like each division, I was in a division called reactor laboratories division.
So I was, I more or less handled like the radioactive controls on board the ship as
well as the steam plant and reactor plant chemistry controls for the reactors.
And so in our division, I was the only black person at the time when I got to the ship
and only black women.
So it was like, I was kind of, it was a, that was the beginning of the feeling isolated
in my career.
Like, you know, I've, I came from an HBCU and then I'm, you know, now I'm in an environment
where, you know, there's nobody around that I can relate to.
So that was, it was lonely.
How did you get through that?
I had a good circle of friends and I still keeping, I mean, we still have a group chat
to this day.
If I, you know, text them, they're going to text back.
So I had a good circle of friends that I established and I just, I tried my best to
maintain some sort of normalcy, like maintain a civilian mindset in the military.
That doesn't work because when you get out, you realize how like, I guess assimilated
you, you are, but I tried to, I tried to just stay grounded and be like, okay, in X amount
of months, you know, I'll be doing this and then X amount of months, I'll be doing this
or we'll be done with deployment.
And so it, you know, just focusing on the what was coming next kind of helps.
You served your country.
You're now at Oak Ridge National Lab.
This is a big gap.
Did you know what was coming after the Navy?
No, I did not know what was coming after the Navy, but I did learn while I was in the Navy
that I really liked nuclear.
I really liked, I liked what I did on the ship.
I really liked my job, but the military, you know, some people make a career out of it.
That was not for me.
So I wanted to be home.
I wanted to have some sort of like, you know, be able to see my family and things like that
because I'd already gone on two deployments and I just, I was like, this, I don't think
this is for me.
And so, you know, I found out I like nuclear and so I didn't know what kind of opportunities
were out there for me.
So I said, well, I'm going to get like a science adjacent job.
So I actually worked at a scientific instrument company and it was just like one day I took
off of work and I like updated my resume and I just put my resume out there.
I applied, I was like, oh, Oak Ridge National Lab.
I applied to a bunch of other different labs, a bunch of other different companies.
And I actually got a call back from the lab that same day by the end of the day.
And yeah, the rest is history.
I've been there 15 years now.
You ended up helping discover an element.
You didn't plan.
No.
So you got your masters and you're working in your PhD and we're really proud of you
for that.
But how did, what happened?
Oh.
I got to the lab and what happened?
Yeah.
So, you know, I get to the lab and the very first year I was on like a rotating shift
schedule and I switched positions to a more research and development like support role.
So I was a technician and the very first project that I got to work on was this, you know, purifying
the burkelem that was used for Tennessee.
And at the time, you know, and how it is still now is like you have a project, you work on
your project till the money runs out or the project is finished and then you move on to
the next project.
And so you just keep going.
And so at the time, you know, I'm a technician.
I'm kind of just doing my job and our job is to purify this burkelem.
And that's what we did.
And after we finished it, I moved on to the next project because that's kind of, you know,
that's just the nature of our job.
And so thinking about it, I was like, oh, that's pretty cool.
But now I have another project I have to focus on.
And it wasn't until later that you realize the significance of what you did.
Because a lot of times in, you know, in science and research and development, a lot of times
it's things that you do in the moment like now.
You know, you don't really...
Yeah, you're on to the next thing.
And it's sometimes it takes years before the fruits of your labor are able to be, you
know, harvested.
So the new element is Tennessee.
Tennessee.
Yeah.
What is it?
And how did that happen?
So it's a super heavy element.
And right now there are 118 elements on the periodic table.
And element 117, it falls in the group, well, group seven elements.
And so, you know, you've got like chlorine and fluorine and astatine, all of those in.
So it follows that nomenclature.
And it's named after the state of Tennessee because there were lots of different entities
that were involved with its discovery.
So Oak Ridge National Lab, Vanderbilt University and the University of Tennessee here.
So you're in the kitchen in Nashville, putting stuff together, making discoveries, and now
you're at the lab making discoveries.
And does that thrill you?
Yes.
I really enjoy being able to get in the lab and do things.
And I know this is weird, but I actually like when I make a mistake because even though
I beat myself up, I mean, really bad if I mess up or I don't know something that I think
I should have known.
I really beat myself up about it.
But it's because I want to learn more.
I should have known that.
So now I'm going to dedicate some time to making sure that I know what I need to know.
I love what you just said.
You said I like when I make a mistake because it means I'm going to learn more.
Yeah.
Right?
What's the ultimate for you?
I just want to encourage other black women specifically to find their voice in science.
A lot of times when I will be in a place, it's a shock.
Maybe not so much as a shock.
It's just a, well, what are you doing here type of thing?
And I want that to not be the norm anymore.
I want women of color to take up space in places that they are normally not found.
And making sure that young women, little kids, all the way down to toddlers, they get immersed
in the possibilities of what science can do for them, their life.
It changed my life.
And just making sure that they stay curious in finding somebody or something that encourages
that curiosity.
Tell me about your family.
Yes.
So I am married to my husband, John.
We've been married for 14 years this year.
And we have three children.
I have an eight year old and two five year old boys.
So it's very busy.
But thankfully we have his mother-in-law is here and we have family that are around here.
My family is kind of all spread out like in Texas and Georgia and Minnesota, obviously.
What do you think has contributed to your durability?
Because you said you have felt isolated.
And I'm sure that this is my, I don't know if this is your story, but this is my story.
My external curiosity is matched by my internal curiosity, pulling myself apart to see how
I work or why I don't work.
And so when you are a curious person, you can be very introspective as well.
And if you're isolated in a career field and that kind of thing, what has helped you kind
of get through that?
If that is true?
Well, for me, the isolation, yeah.
I mean, it was tough.
But I always, what I focused on is that, I guess, I'm going to show them.
You know, like I'm going to show them that I belong here.
And so, because, you know, like I said before, it was like, what are you doing here?
Well, I want to, I want you to realize that not only am I here, but I belong here.
And so I kind of, my endurance or my perseverance is really kind of grounded in not only proving
to myself that I know what I know, but making sure that people know that I know what I'm
talking about.
So here's what I would leave with you is this.
There ought to be a children's book about your life in the story.
That's a good idea.
I think it would be, I mean, I see the story, the wonderful story of this wonderful woman
going from the projects to the library to just then discovering a new element and just
that whole story of you might discover something new, right?
Yeah.
A whole new possibility.
Yeah.
I like that.
Anything's possible.
Thank you for being here.
Thank you.