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McKenzie Hawkins, a doctoral student in ATOC, reflects on balancing the sport with her studies, and why she does both.

Rugby has always been a part of McKenzie Hawkins’ life.

Ever since she was a toddler, she’s had a ball in her hands. Her father coached the sport in her hometown of Knoxville, Tenn., and was an avid fan, exposing her at a young age. Despite that, she didn’t join a team herself until she was 10 years old. And, once she did, never stopped.

“My parents always told me, ‘No pressure,’ (to play) just cause my dad coached. ‘No pressure on playing, you can always stop playing when you stop having fun,’” Hawkins recalls. “I actually still use that mantra now. I still feel like I’m enjoying the sport itself and so that’s what’s kept me in at this point.”

Fast forward to present day, Hawkins, who is a player for and a doctoral student in atmospheric and oceanic sciences (ATOC) at the ��ñ����, has joined the women’s Rugby World Cup team—for the second time.

Her first trip, though, didn’t quite go as planned. While she’d been part of the team, she never earned a jersey, which meant she never played on the field.

“It’s a thing in rugby culture to earn the jersey, and then when you get the jersey, you wear it for the game, and you try and leave the jersey in a better place for the next person who gets to wear it, which is really cool,” Hawkins says.

“There’s a lot of pride in earning your jersey and also passing it on to the next person who can wear it or keep it for as long as you can … There’s a lot of pride in making that 23 roster that gets to represent your country or your club.”

Not getting to see the field “fueled a lot of motivation for this one,” Hawkins says, adding: “When I decided to come back to the sport after that world cup, I knew that I was going to go all in with this one, and I’ve done pretty much everything possible that I can to make sure that I’m in the best spot to hopefully get a jersey once the world cup starts.”

And that work has paid off. Hawkins, who plays fly-half, has been named a starter in the first match against England on Aug. 22.

Whether or not Hawkins continues to play rugby after this year’s world cup is still up in the air, she says. One thing she does know, though, is that she wants to finish her degree at ��ñ����.

It was during Hawkins’ time in Denver that she decided to pursue a PhD in ATOC. While she didn’t have a clear idea of what she wanted to study before joining, it was her time in Professor Peter Pilewskie’s research group that helped her find her way.

Her research uses Earth-observing data from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics’ Compact Total Irradiance Monitor CubeSat, a small satellite that provides low-cost, space-based observations, to compare Earth observations from larger NASA satellites.

Hawkins hopes to use this information to potentially enhance Earth Radiation Budget records, or the data about the level of energy coming in from the sun with the amount going out from the Earth. This information, in turn, could be used to support future climate change policy and action, she says.

“I feel so lucky to be in this program. I couldn’t have found a better fit. I love my little group—the Pilewskie group—super supportive, and for me, it’s really nice to have a program that understands that I’m a person outside of what I do at school, and I think that the program really supports the holistic human,” Hawkins says.

“They support me being here (at the world cup) and having these experiences, because it also develops me as a person and me as a scientist as well. I feel very fortunate to be around the people that are in that program.”

Balancing the two endeavors, Hawkins says, has been tricky, but worth it.

“Part of the reason I wanted to do a PhD is that I never want a younger girl to think that she’s limited to the things that she can do,” says Hawkins.

“For me, when I’m juggling doing rugby, and those training hours are a full-time job, and also doing a graduate program, I think about how we can’t be limited in what we do, and we should reach for the stars in everything that we want to do. That’s a big part of why I do both things.”