“I keep a shelf where I bring in items that I crochet or knit and let my colleagues pick what they like. I have dolls, hats, gnomes, bunnies … you name it, I make it! I also make knitted hats that I donate to the children's hospital.”
Sandie MacLachlan
Assistant to the dean, Nicholas School
of the Environment
“The porthole behind me is from a ship, the Caribsea, that was ordered the year my father was born, 1918. It was sunk by a German U-boat in 1942, the year my sister was born. I picked it up of the ocean floor just off Cape Lookout about 1992 when I was diving with my sister, who was editor of Skin Diver magazine. The shattered glass is from the fire and cooling as the ship sank.”
Daniel Rittschof
Norman L. Christensen Distinguished Professor of Environmental Sciences
“I am a river scientist focused on fluids and sediment, so I accumulate a lot of rocks and pebbles. Because a lot of my field work is around military bases – Fort Bragg and Camp Lejeune and Cherry Point – I end up accumulating military paraphernalia from the bottom of rivers. One of my current Ph.D. students is also a major in the Army, and when he saw the helmet in my office, his first response was, ‘Some private humped a lot of miles when he showed up to barracks without his helmet 75 years ago.’ I'm sure that I'm still going to stumble on Jimmy Hoffa"
Martin Doyle
Professor of river science and policy at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and director of the Water Policy Program at the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability