PhD student Shaina Sadai and Professor Mark Leckie are recipients of the University's 2021 Distinguished Teaching Awards. Since 1961, the University of Massachusetts has presented the Distinguished Teaching Award (DTA) to instructors who demonstrate exemplary teaching at the highest institutional level.
Recent research on soil loss in the Corn Belt by graduate student Evan Thaler and professors Isaac Larsen and Qian Yu has been highlighted by Smithsonian Magazine. Read the Smithsonian article here...
Several students and faculty will be participating in the 2021 (virtual) annual meeting of the American Assocation of Geographers. See below for a schedule of who is presenting when:
Lightning Talk: Using climate modeling and interdisciplinary theory to analyze climate justice impacts of the Paris Agreement
Shaina Sadai
1:40PM
In a new paper in Earth and Planetary Science Letters PhD student Anna Ruth Halberstadt, Dr Rob DeConto, former postdocs Ed Glasson, Doug Kowalewski and colleagues, model ice-sheet dynamics during a past warm period (the mid-Miocene) that is often used as a future analog due to elevated CO2 and warm temperatures.
PhD student Laura Fattaruso recently published a piece on temblor about recent research that looks into why the southern San Andreas Fault has had a relative lack of recent earthquakes: a story that involves the famous Salton Sea, prehistoric Lake Cahuilla, and how those lakes can affect stress in the earth's crust along the Fault.
The hydrogeology research group has published a number of articles in the past few weeks on their research in the Salar De Atacama, Island of Tobago, and Massachusetts. This stellar cast of authors includes Professor David Boutt and graduate students Marsha Allen, Sarah McKnight,
![Linemen work to restore power in Texas during winter storm, February 2021. Photo by Jonathan Cutrer, via Flickr [CC BY-NC 2.0]](http://www.geo.umass.edu/sites/default/files/styles/thumb-square/public/field/image/news/texas-1-1068x580.jpg?itok=Mc3N8Okc)
Associate Professor Eve Vogel provides an analysis in ProMarket about the recent failure of the Texas Power Grid in the contexts of broader electricity markets, biophysical limitations, and different governance options. The piece features a map by MS Geography-GIST students
Recent alum Ian Hillenbrand, professors Mike Williams and Haiying Gao, along with PhD student Cong Li, have just published a paper in Earth and Planetary Science Letters proposing that a
U-Mass Geosciences has a strong showing at the (virtual) annual meeting of the Northeastern Section of the Geological Society of America, March 14th and 15th 2021. If you're attending #NEGSA2021 this year don't miss out! Here is a schedule of who is presenting and when.
Graduate student Evan Thaler, with professors Isaac Larsen and Qian Yu, recently published a paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that documents complete carbon-rich topsoil loss in one-third of the Corn Belt in the Midwest – nearly 30 million acres. Read more...
The American Geosciences Institute just published their report of Geoscience graduate employment trends as of December 2020: "91% of geoscience graduates who earned their degree between 2014-2018 were employed, while 75% of graduates from 2019 and 80% of graduates from 2020 reported the same.
Dr's Brian Yellen, John Woodruff, and collaborators at WHOI recently published a paper in Estuaries and Coasts documenting their findings of much-lower-than-expected sediment levels behind dams in the Lower Hudson watershed in addition to creating a tool to quickly estimate the amount of sediment trapped behind dams. Read more here...
While most of our course offerings are remote this semester, we are offering several courses through U-Mass University Without Walls. These are asynchronous courses that are taught independently from your regular semester courseload, and can taken by anyone, whether enrolled at UMass or not. They are all listed in SPIRE.
Dr. David Boutt, along with colleagues at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, has been commissioned as part of a cooperative study to investigate how lithium extraction impacts the hydrologic environment in Latin America, especially with regards to lithium brine-fresh water aquifer systems. The goal of the study is to provide companies with better guidance on sustainable lithium extraction.
The Geosciences Department is pleased to announce the November 29, 2020 publication of The Chinese City (Routledge, 2021), by Professor Piper Gaubatz (Geography Program) and Professor Weiping Wu (Director, Columbia University Graduate Program in Urban Planning). This is a completely revised second edition of their 2012 book. The book engages with major recent changes in Chinese cities and urban life.
The Daily Hampshire Gazette recently interviewed PhD student Shaina Rogstad and assistant Professor Dr. Ambarish Karmalkar on the IPCC's recent report on the impacts of global warming and how it will affect Western Massachusetts. Read more...
Department head and professor Dr. Julie Brigham-Grette was interviewed by Live Science on her role in the construction of the Yukon Geological Survey's new map of Beringia, ca. 18,000 years ago. Read more...
Dr. Mike Rawlins, associate director of the Climate Systems Research Center, was recently interviewed on WAMC Northeast Public Radio about 2018 being the wettest year on record for Massachusetts, in addition to increasingly rapid weather changes in New England due to climate change. Read more...
Recent research by Professor Dr. Rob DeConto is featured by National Geographic-- The article discusses this research in the light of studies pubished this month showing that retreat of of our ice caps may be slower than previously thought, though the situation is still dire... Read More...
Staple Isotope Laboratory manager and alum Dr. Jeff Salacup published a recent paper in AGU's Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology on using alkenones from phytoplankton to reconstruct high-resolution paleo- sea surface temperatures from coastal settings in Narragansett Bay, RI. Read more....
Professor Dr. Stephen Burns, post-doctoral researcher Dr.
“The world needs more hydrogeologists.”
The U-Mass International Programs office recently highlighted PhD student Marsha Allen and her goal of preventing water shortages on her native island of Tobago. Read more...
Graduate Student Dipa Desai was recently profiled on the Time Scavengers blog! Dipa is a paleoclimatologist who studies how Antarctica responded to past warming events in addition to being a stellar earth science educator. Read the article here...
Graduate students Daniel Miller, Helen Habicht, and Benjamin Keisling, with Dr.'s Isla Castañeda and Ray Bradley published the longest and highest-resolution climate record for the Northeastern United States in Climate of
Dr.'s Erik Shook (University of Minnesota) and Forrest Bowlick recently published a paper in The Professional Geographer on formalizing geospatial computing education and increasing cyber literacy in GIST programs. Read more...
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