The best part of my job is to teach and advise students on their research. It is incredibly rewarding to play even a small role in guiding the next generation of scientists on their journey.

I am honored to work with an incredible team. All of my graduate students present their research at conferences and most lead or co-author peer-reviewed publications. All students who have graduated from my lab have continued to Earth and Environmental Science jobs or graduate degree programs (check out the team page for details, feel free to contact any team member to learn more!). Some examples of my team members' success include:

Significant Postdoctoral Scholar Accomplishments
Michaela Fendrock:
2022: NSF Office of Polar Programs Postdoctoral Research Fellowship

Significant Graduate Student Accomplishments
Hannah Holtzman:
2022: Geological Society of America Quaternary Geology and Geomorphology Division, Arthur D. Howard Award for Outstanding Master's Student Research Proposal
Devon Gorbey:
2022: American Geophysical Union Voices for Science advocate
2022: Ecological Society of America Katherine S. McCarter Graduate Student Policy Award
2022: American Meteorological Society Summer Policy Colloquium
2021: Geological Society of America Student Research Outstanding Mention
Kurt Lindberg:
2021: Geological Society of America Award for Geochronology Student Research
Allison Cluett:
2021: NSF Atmospheric & Geospace Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowship
2018: US Science Support Program Schlanger Ocean Drilling Fellowship
2017: NSF Graduate Research Fellowship

Significant Undergraduate Student Accomplishments
Maya Prabhakar:
2019: UB Honors College Student Research Grant
2019: Rochester Academy of Sciences Student Research Grant
Kayla Hollister:
2018: Geological Society of America Northeastern Section Research Grant
Nathan Marshall:
2017: Rochester Academy of Sciences Student Research Grant

I am committed to promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion on my research team and in my department. I employ strategies that have increased recruitment and doubled retention of students from underrepresented groups in STEM: 1. Emphasizing purpose (Thoman et al., 2015), 2. Providing opportunities to interact with role models (Hernandez et al., 2018; Stokes et al., 2015), and 3. Discussing issues of diversity and racism in STEM (Dutt, 2020), and working to overcome these issues.

To that end, I have served as chair of the UB Geology committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. In Fall 2020, we collected data and set departmental goals, and then subsequently started working towards those goals. I also serve on the UB Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE) Faculty Advisory Committee.

As an adviser, I meet with each of my students weekly one-on-one. A key skill that we focus on is developing a daily writing practice, which not only improves our scientific writing prowess, but also increases our proposal and publication productivity.

I devote weekly group meetings to professional development: we discuss topics including cutting-edge research; mentoring networks; developing a daily writing practice; CVs and job applications; and diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Carbon Reduction Challenge

In Spring 2019, 2020, and 2021 I taught the Carbon Reduction Challenge, in collaboration with Ryan McPherson, UB's Chief Sustainability Officer, inspired by a program developed by Drs. Kim Cobb and Beril Toktay at Georgia Tech. In this class, student teams partner with local businesses in the Western New York Sustainable Business Roundtable to quantify their carbon footprint and propose strategies for carbon emissions reduction. In three semesters, students and partner businesses implemented strategies that will reduce carbon emissions by >2,000,000 pounds each year for the foreseeable future, equivalent to taking 200 cars off the road!
Watch a video about the class.
Read a press release about the 2019 class or the 2020 class.

Courses I have taught:
Climate Change (GLY 102)
Introduction to Geochemistry (GLY 308)
Surface Processes and Hydrology (GLY 312)
Quaternary Dating and Paleoclimate (GLY 453/553)
Forensic Stable Isotopes (GLY 417/517)
Carbon Reduction Challenge (GLY479/579)

Some more info here about current students and alumns of my research team.