Department of Earth, Environmental & Planetary Sciences
Date
July 31, 2023
2023 Summer Undergraduate Research Highlights
From lake sediments to post-fire landscapes, many DEEPS undergraduate students are engaged in groundbreaking research throughout the summer break. We are proud to showcase some of these research projects with this photo series.
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Jonah Bernstein-Schalet: "I am using soils and stream samples from post-fire landscapes in Oregon to investigate the potential effects of fire on weathering and carbon storage/transport." (Advisor Dan Ibarra)
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Jonah Bernstein-Schalet: "I am using soils and stream samples from post-fire landscapes in Oregon to investigate the potential effects of fire on weathering and carbon storage/transport." (Advisor Dan Ibarra)
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Marlena Brown: "I am analyzing oxygen isotopes in a fossil coral from 1810 to understand how temperature and salinity changed in the central tropical Pacific during the onset of climate change." (Advisor Kim Cobb)
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Isaiah Olds-Campanile: "I am exploring the geology of Rhode Island and the surrounding area to create a class focusing on New England Field Geology." (Advisor Blake Hodgin)
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Isaiah Olds-Campanile: "I am exploring the geology of Rhode Island and the surrounding area to create a class focusing on New England Field Geology." (Advisor Blake Hodgin)
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Maxwell Ferguson: "I am analyzing oxygen isotope ratios of microscopic marine fossils (foraminifera) to study changes in sea surface temperature and thermocline depth in the tropical Pacific Ocean during the Pliocene (3 million years ago)." (Advisor Tim Herbert)
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Maxwell Ferguson: "I am analyzing oxygen isotope ratios of microscopic marine fossils (foraminifera) to study changes in sea surface temperature and thermocline depth in the tropical Pacific Ocean during the Pliocene (3 million years ago)." (Advisor Tim Herbert)
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Aaron Freeman: "I'm analyzing organic matter in sediment cores from Lake Piuray, Peru, to understand how the climate in the tropical Andes has changed over the past ~200,000 years, with a particular focus on temperature changes around the last glacial maximum." (Advisor James Russell)
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Josiah Guynes: "I am on a team developing novel microsurgical methods to implant metal markers in bone, with the purpose of recording and modeling the biomechanics of mouse mastication using the Keck Facility x-ray video capture system." (Advisors Beth Brainerd & Kelsey Stilson - Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology)
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Josiah Guynes: "I am on a team developing novel microsurgical methods to implant metal markers in bone, with the purpose of recording and modeling the biomechanics of mouse mastication using the Keck Facility x-ray video capture system." (Advisors Beth Brainerd & Kelsey Stilson - Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology)
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Anna Novatney: "I am using high-accuracy relocation of aftershocks in order to determine the dimensions and orientations of the fault planes associated with the 2014 and 2016 earthquake events centered around Lake Managua in Nicaragua." (Advisor Karen Fischer)
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Luke Randall: "I am synthesizing catalysts and testing their effectiveness in creating polyhydroxyalkanoate polymers, a bioplastic created from renewable sources that have comparable thermal and mechanical properties to traditional plastics but biodegrade in the environment." (Advisor Jerome Robinson - Chemistry)
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Luke Randall: "I am synthesizing catalysts and testing their effectiveness in creating polyhydroxyalkanoate polymers, a bioplastic created from renewable sources that have comparable thermal and mechanical properties to traditional plastics but biodegrade in the environment." (Advisor Jerome Robinson - Chemistry)
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Anjali Shah: "I am using microscopic marine organisms to analyze oxygen isotopes in the equatorial Pacific in order to understand changing ice cover over the past 5-6 million years." (Advisor Tim Herbert)
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Anjali Shah: "I am using microscopic marine organisms to analyze oxygen isotopes in the equatorial Pacific in order to understand changing ice cover over the past 5-6 million years." (Advisor Tim Herbert)
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Gabriel Traietti: "I am analyzing organics such as leaf waxes and cellular membrane lipids in sediments from Lake Towuti, Indonesia, to understand how temperature and hydrology of the region, and the greater Indo-Pacific Warm Pool, have changed in the past 1.1 million years." (Advisor Jim Russell)
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Gabriel Traietti: "I am analyzing organics such as leaf waxes and cellular membrane lipids in sediments from Lake Towuti, Indonesia, to understand how temperature and hydrology of the region, and the greater Indo-Pacific Warm Pool, have changed in the past 1.1 million years." (Advisor Jim Russell)
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Daniel Zhang: "I'm improving on geologic imaging techniques through parameterization to better understand geologically important aspects of subduction zones." (Advisor Victor Tsai)