Thomas W.M. Nuhfer | August 1, 2025

For this series of blog posts, we’ll interview people working interesting STEM jobs you might not have heard of. These interviews will give you a window into some of the scientific work happening all around us – and might even inspire your own career path!

Gretchen Saveson is an early-career Research Associate at the Rich Earth Institute in Brattleboro, Vermont. This non-profit organization is interested in changing our wastewater and agriculture systems by using urine as fertilizer. In addition to conducting research, they also do community education about nutrient cycling, and outreach to farmers and community groups. They even rent out urine-recycling porta-potties! In this interview, the start of a series about lesser-known careers in science, Gretchen tells us about her unusual line of work. 

1. Tell me a little bit about the goal of the Rich Earth Institute. What’s special about the work you’re doing? What do you want people to know?
   Rich Earth’s mission is to advance the use of human waste as a resource through education, agricultural research, and technological development. Urine is rich in many nutrients critical to plant growth, particularly nitrogen, and can be applied to farms and gardens just like any other fertilizer (and has been by humans around the world for millennia! [1]). Rich Earth runs the country’s first community-scale demonstration of urine recycling, where we collect and pasteurize over 13,000 gallons of urine annually for application as fertilizer to local farms (Fig. 1). We hope that our work will foster a growing body of knowledge, cultural acceptance, and regulations from which other communities can draw upon to create resilient systems in the face of aging and expensive wastewater infrastructure, water scarcity, eutrophication of local waterways, or disrupted fertilizer supply chains. 

Fig. 1: Many agricultural fertilizers are carbon-intensive in their production and contribute to pollution [2]. Urine-derived fertilizer can be a more affordable and more sustainable alternative for farmers. (Source: Gretchen Saveson)

2. What made you interested in this job?
   I first cultivated my interest in ecological sanitation while working on a farm post-college, and—more specifically—while pooping in this farm’s composting toilet and witnessing the transformation from bodily waste to nutritional resource. I apprenticed with a local compost toilet professional, who soon encouraged me to seek an internship at the Rich Earth Institute. Over the course of my two years at Rich Earth, my interest in ecological sanitation has further matured as I’ve continued to learn how human excrement sits at the nexus of many issues already near to my heart, such as watershed pollution, sustainable agriculture, disaster relief, public health, circular nutrient economies, and a culture of indispensability. 
3. What does a typical day in your job involve?
   My job at Rich Earth varies by the week and by the season, with the most definable feature of a typical day being the steady stream of pee-related puns from my co-workers that trickle their way into every hour. At this time of year (early summer), I spend the majority of my time coordinating a multi-year study assessing the soil health effects of urine fertilization on silage corn, which involves holding meetings, wrangling supplies, and lots of field work [Fig. 2]. I am also heavily involved with tasks related to the operation of our composting portable toilet fleet, such as transporting them between locations and “mining the gold” out of them. Additional uses of my time include reviewing the literature for future publications, reporting on our current research grants, monitoring pilot implementations of new urine processing technology, and of course, plenty of email. 

Fig. 2: Gretchen conducts field and laboratory research – here applying urine fertilizer treatments to silage corn. (Source: Gretchen Saveson)

5. What’s your educational and/or professional background?
   I was first introduced to scientific field work in my undergrad years at UVM, where I completed a thesis linking mycorrhizal relationships and floral traits in highbush blueberry. After graduating in 2021 with a BS in environmental sciences, I continued orbiting my interest in plants and agriculture as a farmworker in Western Massachusetts and as a wetland technician in the deserts of California and Nevada. In 2023, I completed an Americorps service term at the Rich Earth Institute, where I was later hired on to my current position as a research associate.
6. What skills have you found useful in this line of work? Any that have surprised you?
   In my work on agricultural research projects, I lean heavily on organizational skills to manage materials, time, and personnel. Basic R programming and google spreadsheets skills have been extremely useful for data analysis, and some of my farming skills are helpful in the field. Generally, I find myself using basic math, chemistry, and good old resourcefulness (eg. in one instance, dumpster diving) for innumerable tasks (Fig 3). Skills particularly useful in this line of work (that are under development for me personally) include the plumbing/engineering know-how to build and maintain alternative sanitation infrastructure and the storytelling finesse to tidily deliver the oftentimes unpalatable and complicated story of what we do.

Fig. 3: Chemistry is a big part of the Rich Earth Institute’s work – they use pastuerization, freeze-thaw concentration, and activated carbon filtration technology (produced by their spinoff company, Brightwater Tools) to create an effective and safe fertilizer. They are currently developing technology to stabilize the nitrogen in the urine and to capture urine-derived ammonia gas for use as a soil amendment. (Source: Gretchen Saveson)

6. Did you always know you’d get into the pee-cycling business? Or when you were a little kid, what did you think you’d be when you grew up?
   I didn’t have a dream career as a kid, though “ballerina,” “painter with flock of sheep,” and “wizard” were all strong contenders. Once I learned about the social and environmental woes of the world, I knew I wanted to do something creative and helpful towards improving our human relationship within ecological systems. 
7. What are the worst and best parts of this line of work?
   Worst: There is always more work than available time and funds allow for, which can leave me feeling spread thin over many projects and sad that I probably won’t see much progress in the field over my lifetime.
   Best: My co-workers are an ever-fertile source of knowledge, support, and laughs. I also love that Rich Earth’s work is creative and generative of new systems at a time when most of the (just as important!!) work being done in the environmental field is focused on the conservation of what we haven’t lost yet.

Stay tuned for the next installment of Careers in Science! Do you have an interesting or uncommon job in STEM you’d like to share? Email us at sciencestories-gso@umass.edu. 

References: 

[1] Palgrave, Derek A. “History of Fluid Fertilizers.” In Fluid Fertilizer Science and Technology. CRC Press, 1991.

[2] Penuelas, Josep, Fernando Coello, and Jordi Sardans. “A Better Use of Fertilizers Is Needed for Global Food Security and Environmental Sustainability.” Agriculture & Food Security 12, no. 1 (March 23, 2023): 5. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40066-023-00409-5.