Estrella Beroff

Lab Manager

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About Estrella

Estrella brings a strong background of project management and execution paired with technical acumen to the carbon capture and storage landscape. During her Bachelor's degree at University of California, Berkeley she was directly involved in several research projects. To this day, one her biggest accomplishments was teaching herself enough mineralogy from scratch in eight weeks to contribute meaningfully to carbonate geochemistry research on Neoproterozoic carbonates from Ethiopia. Estrella's undergraduate research thesis examined the mineralogy of poorly metamorphosed Franciscan Melange and how that affected trace nutrient availability for plants in the critical zone.

In addition to her own research, Estrella created a work-study position with the Earth and Planetary Sciences Petrographic Thin Section Laboratory where she prepared samples for the whole department. The coolest rock that she ever got to touch during that job was a serpentinite collected by Andrew Lawson's team in 1923 at a depth of 394 ft below the Golden Gate which he used to argue that the Golden Gate Bridge would be structurally sound to withstand an earthquake of similar magnitude to the 1906 quake if it were anchored to that rock. Science history in action; Lawson's argument held and the Golden Gate Bridge did not suffer observable damage during the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake.

After graduation, Estrella spent a year doing quantitative mineralogy at Los Alamos National Laboratory in their Earth Sciences division. This project, paired with an affiliated leachate experiment examined the role of natural attenuation in a hexavalent chromium contamination plume in the local aquifer. While she was there, Estrella also advocated for diversity, equity, and inclusion measures in the US Department of Energy by giving a pointed TEDx talk on how national laboratories could leverage their student pipelines more effectively. As her Post-Bac wrapped up, Estrella decided to pivot towards getting boots on the ground implementation experience.

For the next five years she answered the call that most geologists hear; which is to work outside with one's (gloved) hands dirtied by mud as a field geologist. Performing everything from Phase II Environmental Impact Reports to Remedial Investigations to routine sampling (and maintenance) on legacy systems, Estrella learned the ins and outs of the environmental remediation industry. She inadvertently became a veteran expert on the sampling procedures of an emerging contaminant: PFAS/PFOA. In 2020 she wrote about being a field geologist on Geoscience For the Future blog which was widely circulated and became a resource document for field programs internationally.

Estrella seeks to build bridges between the historical geology industries like oil and gas, mining and environmental, into the new age of carbon sequestration. She wishes to leverage the community building expertise she gained as a lay-leader at a synagogue for a decade.

Outside of work Estrella enjoys cheeky embroidery, bicycling and reading too many books at the same time. She loves cooking but doesn't love cleaning. She will happily pet every single dog she ever meets, if those dogs are amenable to being pet.

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Publications

Estrella drafted and executed a permanent display at UC Berkeley's McCone Hall (Earth and Planetary Sciences Department) called McCone Henge.