Ask Jacqueline Michel to recall some of her more memorable days on the job and she’s apt to reminisce about places like Saudi Arabia or the Komi region of the former Soviet Union near the Arctic Circle.

Michel was in Saudi Arabia as the only woman in a 35-member response team to assess the impact of the largest oil spill in history during the first Gulf War. The geochemist, who specializes in terrestrial and marine pollution studies and environmental impact assessments, became the first woman to give a live presentation at the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals on oil spill impacts and clean-up techniques.

In Russia, where she was technical manager and supervisor of an oil pipeline leak cleanup in 1996, she lived in an austere oil company camp and flew in dilapidated Russian helicopters she describes charitably as “looking as though they might not have been maintained in quite the same way as ours.”

Those and some 25 other foreign countries have been work venues for the president of Research Planning Inc., a 25-person firm based in Columbia that conducts world-wide multidisciplinary studies on real-life problems affecting the earth.

Projects undertaken by the firm, which was started in 1977 by former USC geological sciences professor Miles Hayes and several USC students, range from management of oil and chemical spills to offshore sand and gravel resources used in beach renourishment efforts.

Clients include oil companies and state, federal, and international governmental agencies, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Office of Pipeline Safety, and the Minerals Management Service of the U.S. Department of the Interior.

“We take the lessons learned and techniques that people have developed in research and apply them to everyday problems,” said Michel, a founding member of RPI who received her bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in geology from USC in 1974, 1976, and 1980. “Our work puts research into a format that allows clients to make decisions based on the information we provide.”

Michel, an adjunct professor in USC’s School of the Environment, also has performed research and managed projects dealing with pollution of surface and ground water, radiological water quality, and hydrocarbon effects in the near-shore marine environment. She serves on three National Research Council committees dealing with fuel and oil spills, the Science Advisory Panel to the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, and is a member of the National Academy of Science Oceans Studies Board.

Michel got the jumpstart that eventually led to her phenomenal career while she was still an undergraduate at Carolina. Geological sciences professor B.J. Kjerfve commented on the strength of a physical oceanography paper she had written and encouraged her to think about continuing her education in geology.

“That one individual piece of encouragement inspired me to apply to graduate school,” said Michel, adding that as an undergraduate she initially didn’t have much confidence or interaction with other people. As a result of Kjerfve’s encouragement and her subsequent success, she now tries to mentor young people and make sure they’re aware of opportunities in geology.

“I’ve always been attracted to everything about being able to study the earth,” she said. “Unlike other lab sciences, geology allows you to start applying its lessons right away. With geology, the laboratory is the world outside.”