In Oak Springs, Ariz., in the Carrizo Mountains, there’s a spectacular view in every direction. Look south and there sits Red Valley with the Chuska Mountains as a backdrop. You’re surrounded by red sandstone, evergreen trees, and blue sky that together present the full color spectrum. Most mornings you wake up to the sounds of all kinds of birds, as their singing echoes between rocks and trees.
Onri Jay Benally, Navajo, calls Oak Springs home. When he was 16, his Grandmother Nancy, who had raised him since birth, was killed by a drunk driver. It had always been just the two of them together in their mountain home. Benally’s grandmother imbued him with a love of learning and always told him that homework is the priority. So there was no way Benally was giving up on school after her death. Living on his own, he graduated from Red Valley High School with valedictorian and leadership awards, as well as college plans.
A self-described honor-roll-kind-of-guy, Benally had many school options. The biggest obstacles in his path to college were his impressions that he was too young and that all the “cool places” were too far away. He chose Utah State and attended two campuses at different times (one an eight-hour drive from his Arizona home), recognizing that after being on his own for two years he could figure out the logistics.
Always drawn to science, Benally’s interest was heightened by what his grandmother taught him about mathematics, blueprinting, farming, silversmithing, and carpentry. His love of music dovetailed into science. By age nine, he had learned the Yamaha keyboard, playing by ear with no sheet music, and then taught himself to play a Hammond organ and the harmonica. Benally still loves to play music to lift up others and himself. Then there is the science of it, how waveforms are produced, how the motor makes organs work. “It’s important to know how your instruments work, down to the internal components,” Benally says.
That desire to know how things work even at the smallest level focused him toward physics. In 2016, Benally earned his associate of science degree from Utah State, where he worked in the university’s science lab and was named a Presidential Scholar. Additionally, he served as vice president of the Blanding campus AISES College Chapter. “That experience helped me to reach out more to the public,” he says. “And I have more confidence when it comes to teaching because of it.”
The desire to know how things work even at the smallest level focused Benally toward physics.
Equally satisfying to Benally is exposure to world-class research and collaborating with experts in the field from around the world. “The techniques they teach me can make a big difference in my experiment results,” he says.
Researchers and postdoctoral associates serve as mentors for Benally. Learning from them, he says, is like obtaining tricks of the trade in science and engineering. Most of the opportunities he has taken resulted from suggestions and recommendations made by his senior colleagues and professors.
Benally thinks his ability to converse with a diversity of people helps him succeed in school and his career. He has a special advantage in communicating. In addition to Navajo and English, he speaks Russian and some Serbian. He plans to learn Chinese next because it is tonal, like Navajo, and many of his fellow researchers speak Chinese. “Knowing other languages helps me connect with new people — it makes discussions lively,” Benally says.
Looking ahead, Benally will continue doing research and learning all he can in quantum spintronics in order to apply it to other useful technologies he plans to develop in the future. And he remains guided by his grandmother’s wisdom and passes it on to others: always do your homework first.
