Member Spotlight: Meet Sevim Erhan
Member Spotlight is a regular INFORM magazine column that features members who play critical roles in AOCS.
| Name | Sevim Z. Erhan |
| Joined AOCS | 1989 |
| Education | Ph.D fromn Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo Michigan, USA) |
| Job title | Center Director, Eastern Regional Research Center (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA) |
| Employer | Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture |
| Current AOCS involvement | Member of Awards Committee |
Professional
Flash back to when you were 10 years old. What did you want to be when you grew up?
I always wanted to be a science teacher. I started tutoring when I was in high school. I then became a teaching assistant while I was doing my Ph.D., and continued to teach classes for a time after I graduated.
Why did you decide to do the work you are doing now?
Doing research is very rewarding as new solutions to problems emerge. I certainly did not realize that when I was very young but developed an interest in high school, where I was exposed to a chemistry laboratory. I was very much set to work on research and development while I was in a Ph.D. program at Western Michigan University and applied for a research associate position at the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research in Peoria, Illinois, USA (NCAUR). I have been working for the agency since 1988.
I worked as a research scientist, lead scientist, and research leader for the first 20 years of my career at NCAUR. I was encouraged to consider senior executive service positions, so I entered a two-year program sponsored by the agency for preparing to be a good candidate for those types of positions. At the end of the first year of the program, the Center director position at the Eastern Regional Research Center (ERRC) became vacant and I applied and was selected for the position. I have been at ERRC as the director for the past 12 years.
Is there an achievement or contribution you are most proud of? Why?
I’m proud of my Agricultural Research Service research focused on nonfood uses of vegetable oils. I have worked on several projects that resulted in nine patents and the licensing of those technologies, including soy inks and environmentally friendly elevator fluids, which are now in use at the Statue of Liberty. But I am most proud of the footprint ink I developed for newborns in hospitals. My daughter was the first baby in the United States to be footprinted with that ink. Several news channels featured the story at the time.
Personal
How do you relax after a hard day of work?
With a cup of Turkish coffee.
What is the most impressive thing you know how to do?
As an engineering student in Turkey, I completed my mandatory apprenticeship in a glassblowing factory and was always very impressed with the workmanship. As it so happened, when I was a graduate student at Western Michigan University, for part of my Ph.D. thesis I needed over 100 glass vessels that were not commercially available at the size we needed. The chairman of the department taught me the basics of glassblowing. After a number of mishaps and misshapen products, I was happy to have gotten very good at creating exactly what I needed.
