Rita Silbernagel
Principal Scientist, Sublime Systems
Rita Silbernagel
Principal Scientist, Sublime Systems
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Principal Scientist, Sublime Systems
Principal Scientist, Sublime Systems
Professional title: Principal Scientist at Sublime Systems
Career field: Chemistry
Degree(s) earned: BS in Chemistry from University of Minnesota in 2007, PhD in Chemistry from Texas A&M University in 2016
What's your story?
Became inspired by Dr. Driessen at U of MN and decided to pursue Chemistry as my major. Graduated from U of MN in Dec of 2007 but walked in May of 2008. Worked after undergraduate for 3 years at a startup in the fire fighting foam industry with all women at the time. Left to pursue grad school at Texas A&M University doing separations of rare earth elements and radioactive materials to reduce waste. Graduated and worked for BASF on emission reducing catalysts, lived in Germany at BASF's headquarters while focusing on Innovation and partnerships with companies/universities, and then made cosmetic effect pigments that go into women's cosmetic ingredients (pigments for eyeshadow, lipstick, etc.) for some of the largest cosmetic companies in the world. Learned how to take a process from the lab and scale it to over 1000 gallons! Then moved from a large corporation (BASF) to another startup in Boston called Phoenix Tailings. The goal at Phoenix was to separate rare earth elements and create rare earth metals in the US, instead of China where over 90% of the materials are produced! Recently, I moved to Sublime Systems another startup from MIT, outside of Boston. The focus at Sublime is to reduce the carbon emissions of cement. Cement contributes to 8% of global CO2 emissions, so this is no small task! I'm currently investigating ways to recover iron from our circular process and make viable products for building revenue in this new company.
What are your primary job responsibilities?
Scientist, Manager
What is a typical work day-in-your-life like?
Lab experiments, leading a team, talking to customers/consultants, scaling up experiments, solving issues, etc.
How did you find your first job?
Aerotek helped me land my first job out of undergraduate.
What level of education (Bachelor's, Masters, PhD, etc.) is required to do your job?
I think BS would be sufficient but nothing is limited when you have PhD, so I would say PhD in my opinion.
What is your work schedule like? Do you ever work weekends or nights?
M-F - I occasionally work weekends or late nights because I believe in hustle and I like my work.
Do you travel for work? If so, in what capacity, and how often?
I've traveled about 1-2x a year for different conferences/events
What is your work environment like? Do you work mostly with a team or mostly independently? Do you stand, sit, or move most of the day?
Work environment is a mixture of team/independent work. I am the lead on our co-products division. I would say that I stand for about half the day in the lab and then sit for half the day in meetings on average.
What do you like most about your job?
Sustainable application of my learnings and efforts.
What are some tools or skills that you can't live without? These can be technologies, soft skills, hardware, or anything else you can think of.
Deductive reasoning, trend-awareness, excel, people skills, passion for sustainability, etc.
What skills, traits, talents do you have that you think make you a good fit for your job?
Chemically capable and I am easy to work with. I'm pretty flexible and I strive to be a good manager for my team by helping them both technically but also in their professional development.
What's your best productivity trick?
Hustle, keep going - no matter what, there is a problem to solve
Do you have any habits that are essential to your professional success that you wish you started earlier?
Networking
What's the best career advice you've ever received? What career advice would you give to someone starting out in your field?
Networking is everything. Be good at your job but also work to be likeable and flexible with your colleagues.
How do you build community in your career field? Are you part of any professional organizations?
Go to conferences in the same field, year after year. I'm involved frequently with Dept of Energy events and colleagues.
Do you have a favorite memory from your time at the University of Minnesota?
Dr. Driessen was telling me to do a chemistry major at first and I laughed and said no way. 8 years later I thanked her in my PhD Chemistry thesis for inserting the thought in my brain.