Three weeks after receiving her doctorate, Dr. Benitez-Nelson worked as a research faculty member at the University of Hawaii. "I had worked in labs as a research assistant until then, but that was my first real environmental research job," she says. "I wasn't required to teach or mentor students; I just did research." Dr. Benitez-Nelson's research there involved examining how, and in what forms, marine organisms utilize phosphorous for growth. She also examined how carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere by studying the formation and sinking of carbon-containing particles in the ocean.
In 2002, Dr. Benitez-Nelson joined the faculty in the Department of Geological Sciences (Now School of the Earth, Ocean, and Environment) at the University of South Carolina (USC), where she teaches and continues to do research. She was promoted to Associate Professor in 2006 and Full Professor in 2010. She is now a College of Arts & Sciences Distinguished Professor in Marine Sciences and has stayed there for over a decade. "I found out the job was available, thought the position looked great, and applied for it," she says simply. While, "I had other offers," she notes, "USC was the place that wanted me the most and felt like a family." Dr. Benitez-Nelson is also the Senior Associate Dean for College Initiatives and Interdisciplinary Programs.
She served as the overall Director and the Director of Undergraduate Studies at the school's Marine Science Program. In her roles, Dr. Benitez-Nelson modernized the undergraduate curriculum, expanded the number of Marine Science faculty, and increased the size of the undergraduate and graduate programs. Benitez-Nelson remains an active researcher and is still interested in phosphorus biogeochemistry and particle cycling. She has led several interdisciplinary programs and authored or coauthored more than 130 publications in leading, high-impact journals including PlosOne, Geophysical Research Letters, Nature, and Science. Additionally, she received more than $3 million in grant funds and has served as the principal investigator or co-principal investigator on significant, multi-year research and education grants funded by prestigious institutions such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Although Dr. Benitez-Nelson describes her career as being "wonderful" overall, there have been a few rough spots. One was the birth of her first child. "After my son was born, I loved being with him," she recalls. "It suddenly put things in perspective in terms of what was important and what wasn't." Dr. Benitez-Nelson says that at times, lack of sleep became a problem, and it was challenging to manage the shift in focus between her career and her son. "My career wasn't as important at that point—instead, my son was the highlight of my life," she says. However, she was able to get through that period with the support and encouragement of her mentors and her family, especially her husband and mom. "Life's been pretty good in general," Benitez-Nelson says. "Everyone has hardships, but you get through them." Dr. Benitez-Nelson is now the proud mother of two children,
Benitez-Nelson acknowledges that working in the scientific field can sometimes be difficult when "[I] look like I do." She notes that she has sometimes been mistaken for a secretary because of her race and gender, and people have at times assumed she'd be more "comfortable" in some regions of a city solely because that's where "minorities live." She realizes that such mistakes are often made out of ignorance rather than malice; however, educating others can become tiresome after a while. Fortunately, Benitez-Nelson notes that attitudes like these are slowly improving. "I think it's changing," she says. "There is a lot of progress being made in people's perceptions and how they think."