“I am very hesitant to talk about my past,” said Wolf (MESC 23, BSc H 21), who goes by one name. “I have a history of literacy challenges as I wasn’t given a proper education growing up.”
Wolf was raised in a community where public education was strongly discouraged. “For religious reasons, my parents chose against sending me to school but were woefully unqualified to educate me on their own. Though they had the intentions of homeschooling me, my education didn’t extend much beyond bible studies.” By age 14, Wolf would watch children pass by on school buses and wonder how her life might be different if she went to school. She asked to be allowed to attend school, but her requests were denied.
Instead, Wolf worked as a child and teen — sometimes juggling up to three jobs — and left home at 18. Despite being barely literate, Wolf felt an overwhelming urgency to earn a high school diploma. “With every passing year, I started to panic about how far behind I was,” said Wolf. “At age 21, I dragged myself to the Adult Education Centre in Selkirk.”
There, she met Laryssa Kurjewicz (BSc Hons 05), an adult education instructor and UWinnipeg alum, who would play a pivotal role in Wolf’s transformation. Within a year, Wolf met the requirements for her high school diploma but chose to stay another year to explore her newfound interests in science.
“My teacher, Laryssa, was very compassionate,” said Wolf. “She would often stay until midnight, teaching me foundational principles that were not taught to me during my adolescent years. She had a non-judgmental approach and a very quirky and engaging teaching style that I found quite interesting. She had a lot of faith in me, and I just needed one person to believe in me.”
Joining UWinnipeg
Encouraged by Laryssa, Wolf applied to the University of Winnipeg. She planned to major in psychology to try making sense of her past. “At that point, I was processing my anger and asking why I had to go through what I did,” said Wolf. While she enjoyed psychology, she realized that she didn’t want her past to dictate her future.
“This was a pivotal realization. I realized bad things happen every day. I had to stop asking why and just embrace my life and opportunities. Getting accepted to UWinnipeg was an opportunity, and I decided I was going to do what I wanted to do.”
Wolf shifted her focus to chemistry, despite struggling academically. “I wasn’t great at it,” admitted Wolf. “I absolutely had F’s on my transcript and failed numerous exams throughout my seven years at UWinnipeg. But my failures don’t define me. They remind me that I am imperfect and keep me humble.”
Though she struggled with learning how to be a student, Wolf found joy in the lab. She became known as “the girl with the purple hair” who was always experimenting. Eventually, she became a lab instructor, mentor, and tutor to other students.
A conversation that led to Mars
When the pandemic disrupted her plans to study abroad, Wolf discovered a new master’s program at UWinnipeg in environmental science and social change (MESC). She was drawn to Dr. Ed Cloutis and his work in planetary exploration using various types of spectroscopy.
I went from lacking confidence in my reading skills during my first year of university, to five years later, working on my master’s and operating a Mars rover.
Although she had studied spectroscopy in her undergrad, studying from a planetary science perspective was new to her. Still, she reached out to Dr. Cloutis, and that conversation changed her life.
“He asked me if I wanted to study the Moon, Mars, or asteroids,” said Wolf. “I hadn’t thought about it before, so I said, ‘Let’s go with Mars.’ Then he asked how I felt about operating the Mars Rover.” The Perseverance rover was in transit to Mars at that time.
Wolf’s master’s thesis became a blend of remote sensing, analogue work, and rover operations. “It was the weirdest master’s ever,” laughed Wolf. “A huge part of it was actually operating the rover.”
Through Dr. Cloutis, one of the few Canadian co-principal investigators on NASA’s Mars2020 mission, she joined the SuperCam team on the Perseverance Rover. She now works with Los Alamos National Laboratory, operating the SuperCam instrument on Mars. Next year will mark the fifth year she has worked on the mission and five years of Perseverance exploring Mars.
Reflecting on her journey, Wolf recalls struggling with feelings of insecurity and being left behind. But she credits UWinnipeg with giving her the opportunities and confidence to succeed. “I believed a lot in myself in part because of my experience at UWinnipeg.”
