People
People that have worked in the lab recently:
Undergraduate Students
Anna Morgan (’24): Anna is analyzing samples from Vernier Valley, Antarctica for aerosol salt concentrations. She will present her results at the Geological Society of America’s 2024 Southeastern Section meeting.
Xiyu “Sabrina” Wang (’26): Sabrina is working on samples from Sardinia, Italy, to determine rates of tafoni formation using cosmogenic nuclides. The quartz is clean, and we’re eagerly awaiting Be-10 concentrations!
Payton Breitzmann (’24): Member of the 2022 Antarctic field team. Payton worked on samples from Walcott Glacier we collected in the summer of 2023.
Ming “Kevin” Chen (’24): Member of the 2022 Antarctic field team. Kevin worked on samples we collected in the summer of 2023 and presented his results from Arena Valley, Antarctica at the 2023 AGU conference.
Nadia McGlynn (’24): Member of the 2022 Antarctic field team. Nadia worked on samples we collected in the summer of 2023 and presented her results from Lower Wright Valley, Antarctica at the National Association of Black Geoscientists 42nd annual technical conference in Washington, D.C. Nadia won first place for her poster!
Courtney Megerian (’22): Member of the 2022 Antarctic field team. Courtney did a post-baccalaureate research program through the NSF GEO-REPS program. She presented her results from Vernier Valley, Antarctica at the 2023 Rocky Mountain GSA Section Meeting. As an undergraduate, Courtney did her senior thesis on the provenance of glacial tills from Cape Cod, MA. Courtney presented her results from Cape Cod at the 2021 AGU conference.
Ellie Miller (’22): Senior thesis on the provenance of the Sirius Till Group, Antarctica. Ellie presented her results at the 2021 AGU conference.
Sophia Wang (’22): Research on the provenance of glacial tills from the Olympus Range and Friis Hills, Antarctica. Sophia presented her results at the 2021 AGU conference.
Alyssa “Rae” Larrinaga (’22): Research on the spectroscopy of weathering on bedrock in Antarctica and erosion rates determined with cosmogenic nuclides. Rae’s results were presented at the 2018 GSA conference.
Maya Sandel (’21): Field work in the Central Italian Alps to understand the deglacial history since the last glacial maximum. Here are some photos of the field work. The first paper from that field season was recently published in Landslides!
Emma Rimmer (’20): Senior Thesis project on the glacial history of Ong Valley, Antarctica with cosmogenic nuclides. Here’s Emma doing lab work at the University of Vermont’s Community Cosmogenic Nuclide Lab. Emma went to graduate school at the University of Miami for Marine Conservation.
Andrew Grant (’19): Field work in Ong Valley, Antarctica in 2017. Andrew wrote a senior thesis about the accumulation of aerosol salts in Ong Valley and presented his results at the 2018 GSA meeting. He also wrote and directed a musical about the environment for the student group, Original Cast. https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2019/01/30/student-pushing-boundaries-to-impact-the-earth-and-people-in-it/
Alison Cribb (’18): Ali presented her research on the geochemistry of soil transport at the GSA conference in 2016. Ali went to graduate school at University of Southern California after graduating.
Evan Miranda (’18): Evan’s presented his research on the provenance of glacial till in Antarctica and Long Island, NY at GSA conferences in 2016 and 2017.
Julia Grabowski (‘17): Senior Thesis on the Geology of bald mountains, TN and NC. Julia went to graduate school at Colorado State University.
Sarah Sams (‘16): Conducted field work on glacial moraines in the Sierra Nevada, CA, conducted lab work at the Berkeley Geochronology Center, presented her results at the 2015 AGU conference, and then wrote a senior thesis on cosmogenic nuclide exposure age of glacial tills from Antarctica and California. Sarah went to a post-baccalaureate program at Los Alamos National Lab, and then to graduate school at Purdue University.
Julia Liu (’16): Senior thesis on zircon geochemistry of the Hope Granite and Wyatt Formation, Antarctica. Julia presented her results at the 2015 AGU conference. Julia went to medical school after graduation.
Katherine Edwards (‘15): Senior Thesis on the provenance of glacial tills in Ong Valley, Antarctica, using multiple methods. Katherine presented her results at the 2014 AGU conference. Katherine went to law school after graduating.
Courtney van Stolk (’13): Conducted field work in Peru in the summer of 2012 using lichenometry to examine the construction and abandonment date of buildings ine Colca Valley, Peru. Courtney attended graduate school at Oregon State University.
Kyle Broach (‘12): Senior Thesis. Bioturbation rates under sea ice, Explorer’s Cove, Antarctica. Kyle presented his results at the 2012 GSA conference. Kyle went to graduate school at UC Santa Cruz after graduation.
Catherine Grady Iskrenko (‘12): Conducted field work on glacial moraines in the Sierra Nevada, CA, presented her results at the 2011 AGU conference, and wrote a senior thesis on modeling moraine degradation. Catherine joined the Coast Guard after graduation.
Rebecca “Reba” McCracken (’12): Conducted field work in the Colca Valley, Peru and presented her results on a lichen growth rate curve at the 2011 GSA conference. Reba went on to graduate school at Iowa State University and now works for the National Park Service. She was part of the team that published an updated glacial geologic map of Yosemite National Park.
High School students
Supervised through the School for Science and Math at Vanderbilt
Gwen Johnson: spring 2022 – fall 2022: Detrital zircon provenance project on samples from Ong Valley, Antarctica.
Lucia Berkey: spring 2019 – fall 2019: Detrital zircon provenance project on samples from the ANDRILL sediment core.
Ruby Kinkel: spring 2018 – fall 2018: Detrital zircon provenance project on samples from the Tucker Glacier area, Northern Victoria Land, Antarctica.
Graduate Students
Alessandro Longhi (PhD ’21): Alessandro was a visiting graduate student intern at my lab in the EES department in 2018-19. We’re working on projects together using cosmogenic nuclides to date landslides and glacial deposits in the Alps. He completed his PhD dissertation at Insubria University, Italy on the glacial history of the Alps. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alessandro-Longhi-2
Jess Raff (PhD ’23): Jess worked in my lab on a project using cosmogenic nuclides from sands in the delta of Bangladesh to look at transit times of sediment through the Ganges-Brahmaputra river system.