Earth Science Students Participate in Rice University’s 90 Second Thesis Competition
The Earth Science Ph.D. program fielded its first team of student participants in the university-wide 90 second thesis competition this spring. Students Tamunoisoala LongJohn, Harsha Vora, Tuo Zhang, Zuolin Liu, and Lacey Pyle had 90 seconds to describe their Ph.D. thesis topics to a diverse panel of judges. Follow this link here to see their performances.
Janne Blichert-Toft elected as member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters
Janne Blichert-Toft, one of our permanent Wiess visiting scientists, was elected as a member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters. This is the highest distinction for a scientist in Denmark. Janne’s primary home is at the Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon in France. She is one of the most highly cited high temperature isotope geochemists in the world. Her research is primarily focused on mantle geochemistry, continent formation, and planetary processes. She was instrumental in establishing and leading Lu-Hf isotope geochemistry as a tool for understanding Earth processes. Find out more about her research here.
We feel proud and fortunate to have Janne here each spring. Congratulations Janne!
Rice students win coveted Graduate Research Fellowships from the National Science Foundation
Every year, the National Science Foundation awards Graduate Research Fellowships to senior undergrads and beginning graduate students. These prestigious awards provide full funding for graduate school in the fields of science, mathematics and engineering. They are one of the most coveted awards for a young scientist. This year, two of our current students and two very recent alumna received awards. More information on how to apply for these scholarships can be found at http://www.nsfgrfp.org/.
Elli Ronay (BSc – 2016) for “Paleogroundwater Modeling from Cave Speleothem Drip Maps Surrounding the Colorado Plateau: Implications for Uplift History”. Elli just completed a senior honor’s thesis with Cin-Ty Lee, entitled “Identifying Ash in the Cretaceous Eagle Ford Formation: Implications for Ash Source Identification and Ash Dissolution Properties”. She will be starting a PhD at Vanderbilt University this fall.
Maya Stokes (BSc – 2015) for “Co-evolution of river networks and life”. She is currently a PhD student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Maya says “I am finishing up my first year at MIT working with Dr. Taylor Perron. I am interested in how fluvial bedrock river networks reorganize, specifically through divide migration and stream capture. My field area will be the central and southern Appalachians, where I hypothesize, the evolution of the river network has affected the evolution of and biogeography of aquatic species. I will use a combination of remote-sensing data and fieldwork to quantify the style and extent of reorganization of river networks, and landscape evolution models to better understand the mechanisms of stream capture. For my second project prior to my general exams at MIT, I am mapping paleoshorelines of lakes on the Chilean Altiplano with Dr. David Mcgee and graduate student Christine Chen to investigate the paleohydrology of the region.” At Rice, she completed a senior honor’s thesis with Jeff Nittrouer entitled “Synsedimentary deformation in prodelta sedimentary deposits: the role of failures in shelf to deep-water sediment transport in the Western Irish Namurian Basin”
Rachel Marzen (BSc – 2015). Rachel is currently a PhD student at Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, New York. While at Rice, she worked with Julia Morgan on a senior honor’s thesis entitled “Modeling Effects of Cohesion on Interactions between Erosion and Exhumation in a Bivergent Origenic Wedge”
Andrew Moodie is a current PhD student at Rice, working with Jeff Nittrouer. His NSFGRP proposal was entitled “Evaluating limitless sustainability of deltas”. Andrew states, “The sustainability of deltas is far from certain, due to a multitude of natural and anthropogenic factors. My research seeks to evaluate the Huanghe (Yellow River) fluvial-deltaic system through numerical modeling and field survey, to identify best practices for promoting long-term deltaic sustainability.”
Congratulations Andrew, Elli, Maya, Rachel!
New Field Emission Electron Probe MicroAnalyzer installed at Keith-Wiess Geological Laboratory
New Field Emission EPMA in Rice News: “New tool probes deep into minerals and more”
EPMA Lab Web page: EPMA Laboratory
IRESS Student Poster Prize Winners
IRESS 2016 included posters presentations by 24 Earth Science students. Poster awards were presented to Brian Demet (honorable mention), Daniel Woodworth (3rd prize), Pankaj Khanna (1st prize), Monica Erdman (2nd prize), and Jie Hou (honorable mention, not in photo). Photo by Gary Linkevich.
Laurence Yeung wins 2016 F. W. Clarke award from the Geochemical Society
Laurence Yeung, assistant professor of Earth Science, will be awarded the F. W. Clarke medal from the Geochemical Society at this year’s V. M. Goldschmidt meeting in Yokohama, Japan. The award is named after Frank Wigglesworth Clarke, who determined the composition of the Earth’s crust and is considered by many to be the father of Geochemistry. From the Geochemical society’s announcement:
The Clarke Award recognizes an early-career scientist for a single outstanding contribution to geochemistry or cosmochemistry published either as a single paper or a series of papers on a single topic. Prof. Yeung is recognized for developing, both experimentally and theoretically, a new clumped isotopologue system with applications to natural systems.
With Dr. Yeung’s award, the Department of Earth Science now has three F. W. Clarke medalists: Profs. Cin-Ty Lee (2009), Rajdeep Dasgupta (2011), and Laurence Yeung (2016). We are tied (with Caltech) for the most Clarke medalists in any department in the world. Here’s to many more!
Mini-flume landslide experiments
In a collaboration with Chris Paola at the University of Minnesota St. Anthony Falls Laboratory, Brandon Dugan is adding a mini-flume to Rice Geotechnical Lab. Benchtop landslide experiments starting soon.
Jie Hou – 2014 SEG Best Paper Presentation
Congratulations to grad student Jie Hou for receiving the 2014 Society of Exploration Geophysicists Best Paper Presentation!
Jie Hou below with his adviser Bill Symes.
Matt Weller – AGU SEDI – Graduate Research Award 2015
Matthew Weller received a dual B.Sc. in geology and astrophysics from the University of Toledo in 2007 and a M.Sc. in remote sensing from the University of Nevada, Reno, in 2010. He is currently finishing a Ph.D. in planetary science and geodynamics under the principle supervision of Adrian Lenardic at Rice University in Houston, Texas. His research focuses on the evolution and dynamics of planetary bodies, deformation through the crust and mantle, and the coupling of global-scale endogenic and exogenic cycles.
Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences
Rice University
MS-126
6100 Main Street
Houston, TX 77005 USA
Phone: 713.348.4880
Fax: 713.348.5214
Email: geol@rice.edu
