The Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences joins Brown University in celebrating the achievements of the graduating class of 2025. Here we will be sharing an expanded version of our Commencement Program, listing the accomplishments of our new graduates, photos of the event, and other resources.

Dr. Bethany Ehlmann, a 2010 graduate of Brown with with a PhD and MS in geology, has been named director of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado Boulder. LASP’s mission is to advance scientific discovery and inspire the next generation through forefront research, innovation and education.

Pope Francis has appointed five new members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, including Maria Zuber, a 1985 graduate of Brown University and an accomplished planetary scientist involved in multiple NASA missions.

NASA has chosen eight scientists to participate in its Lucy mission, including Fiona Nichols-Fleming, a 2023 graduate of Brown's Department of Earth, Environmental Sciences and currently a Postdoctoral Research Geologist at the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. The Lucy mission aims to study the Jupiter Trojan asteroids, which are considered remnants from the early solar system.

Colorado School of Mines recently announced the appointment of Dr. Stefanie Tompkins as its next Provost, effective May 12, 2025. Dr. Tompkins is a 1997 graduate of Brown with a PhD and MS in geology, and brings a distinguished career in scientific research, public service and executive leadership to Mines.

Ben Friedman ’09 shares a touching memorial of Jan Tullis in this recent Brown Daily Herald opinion piece.

Kim Cobb, a professor of earth, environmental and planetary sciences and Director of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, delivered the Family Weekend keynote about the inflection point at which the world finds itself — and the numerous ways that the current generation of students is rising to face critical climate challenges through research and action. “I am extremely optimistic, mostly because the work that we’re doing here at Brown is illustrative of the engagement of this institution, and our entire community in making solutions that are durable and equitable,” Cobb said.

DEEPS community members were on hand to celebrate two successful launches this October.

A recent publication in Science by Andrea Tokranov, Class of 2012, presents a national predictive model for assessing the level of "forever chemicals" (PFAS) in groundwater at the depths of drinking-water supplies across the United States. The study suggests that up to 95 million people may unknowingly rely on groundwater contaminated with PFAS. Since PFAS analysis is costly, the model aims to help direct resources to high-risk areas.

A new paper published earlier this year by alumn Benjamin Boatwright PhD’22 and Professor James Head PhD’69 proposes new refinement to current imagining technologies using a method they call “shape-from-shading.”

After decades of research, a reliable earthquake prediction system remains elusive as ever. Michael Blanpied ’85 ScM, ’89 PhD isn’t worried.

The Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences joins Brown University in celebrating the achievements of the graduating class of 2024. Here we will be sharing an expanded version of our Commencement Program, listing the accomplishments of our new graduates, photos of the event, and other resources.

DEEPS alumn Jonathan (Peck) Overpeck was recently elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Overpeck was one of Tom Webb's former PhD students and currently serves as the Dean of the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan.

Angel Mojarro, who graduated from Brown in 2011 with B.Sc. Geological Sciences, discusses his research on lipids at NASA Goddard and the chance to work on the samples from OSIRIS-REx in a recent NASA Early Career Scientist Spotlight.

Dr. Sierra (Wiegman) Brown holds a B.S. (2016) in Geophysics and Geochemistry from SUNY Fredonia, and M.S. (2018) and Ph.D. (2022) degrees in Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences from Brown University. Brown is also an enrolled member of the Shinnecock Nation, and draws on the practice of “Two-Eyed Seeing” to provide unique insights that integrate indigenous and western approaches to knowledge.

In a new paper published in Science Advances, Professor Donald Fisher, a Geosciences faculty member at Penn State and Brown alumnus, and DEEPS Chair Greg Hirth propose that rocks buried deep in ancient subduction zones could help scientists make better predictions of how these zones behave during the years between major earthquakes.

Fatima Husain earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Organic Geochemistry in 2017. Now, she is a PhD student at MIT investigating the co-evolution of life and Earth and works to communicate science to the public.

Samuel W. Bell, a 2016 Ph.D. graduate of DEEPS, is currently the State Senator representing District Five (Providence) in the Rhode Island Senate. He recently sat down with the Brown Political Review to discuss his campaign and political journey.

The Odyssey orbiter captured clouds and dust in the Red Planet’s skies, along with one of its two tiny moons. Laura Kerber '11, deputy project scientist for NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter, explains in a video how and why the spacecraft captured a view of the Red Planet similar to the International Space Station’s view of Earth.

At the annual Careers Day, DEEPS students and community members had the opportunity to hear from two alumni, Isabella Gama Dantas and Mali'o Kodis, about their career journeys outside academia. 

DEEPS Alumna Rocío Paola Caballero-Gill '15 was selected to receive the 2023 AGU Award for Advancing Inclusive Excellence in STEM, which recognizes exemplary efforts made by an individual or team for developing programs, systems, or networks that have led to the advancement of diversity, equity, and inclusion within the Earth and space sciences community.

University of Central Florida planetary scientist and DEEPS alumna Kerri Donaldson Hanna is counting the days until NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer mission launches from Cape Canaveral and begins its journey to search for water on the moon.

This summer, an article was published in AGU's Geophysical Research Letters representing work from former Ph.D. graduate Aron Buffen, Professor Meredith Hastings, and other colleagues using a model to better understand how sunlight changes snow nitrate. The work was featured as the cover art for the June issue of AGU's Geophysical Research Letters.

F. Scott Anderson ‘90 of the Southwest Research Institute is the Principle Investigator on the mission Dating an Irregular Mare Patch with a Lunar Explorer (DIMPLE), which will investigate the Ina Irregular Mare Patch, discovered in 1971 by Apollo 15 orbital images. "Our mission," said Professor Jim Head, "is designed to land, explore, and date in situ, the enigmatic Ina D-shaped pit crater, a volcanic features whose impact crater-count age is interpreted to be an astoundingly young ~33 million years, but whose geological context suggests could be over 3 billion years."

The Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences joins Brown University in celebrating the achievements of the graduating class of 2023. Here we will be sharing an expanded version of our Commencement Program, listing the many accomplishments of our new graduates.

In honor and celebration of World History Month, NASA's Center for Climate Simulation spotlights the career of DEEPS alumn Dr. Chelsea Parker. In her own words, Dr. Parker shares the story of her unique career journey and current role at NCCS.

DEEPS alumnus David Grinspoon ’82, senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, has been selected by NASA to participate in its independent study team on unidentified aerial phenomena, aka UFOs. The first of its kind at NASA, the team will analyze unclassified data on documented UFO sightings with the aim to shed light on the potential nature of the recorded encounters.

DEEPS Alumna Dr. Karen E. Kohfeld '90 received an Honorary Ph.D. from the Faculty
of Natural Sciences at Stockholm University. She is currently serving as Director and Professor in the School of Environmental Science and Professor in the School of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University.

A new paper co-authored by Associate Professor Ralph Milliken and Senior Research Scientist Takahiro Hiroi examines the Formation and evolution of carbonaceous asteroid Ryugu using samples returned by the Hayabusa2 spacecraft (JAXA mission). DEEPS alumn Seiji Sugita also contributed to the research.

The SSERVI Awards recognize outstanding achievements in exploration science and recipients have each made unique contributions to NASA’s human exploration efforts. SSERVI Award winners are nominated by their academic peers and are selected by a committee based at SSERVI’s central office. The awards will be presented along with invited lectures from the recipients at the 2022 NASA Exploration Science Forum (NESF).

2022 Brown University Library Innovation Prizes & Carney Institute Brain Science Reproducible Paper Prize

The U.S. National Science Foundation has named its awardees for this year's Alan T. Waterman Award, the nation's highest honor for early-career scientists and engineers.

2021 AGU Outstanding Student Presentation Awards

Mineralogical Society of America 2021

DEEPS alumnus Richard Vachula just landed a spot on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Science list.

2021 AGU Section Awardees and Named Lecturers

Brown Alumni Association of Hawaii NASA Event: "Out of this World with NASA’s Perseverance Mars Mission"

JB Novak '20 came up with a more accurate way to figure out past ocean temperatures.