EAES Students Win Research Grants and Scholarships

Earth and Environmental Science Masters student J. Mitchell Clay was awarded the CSAM $5000 Sokol Summer Graduate Research Fellowship. The award will fund Mitchell’s masters research on Newberry Volcano, a truly massive shield volcano that is unusual compared with the majority of volcanic centers within the Pacific "Ring of Fire" which dwarfs all but one volcano within the Cascade Range. The award will fund field research and lab work to investigate the origins of the mafic eruptions of Newberry Volcano in the High Cascade back-arc region.

Earth and Environmental Science Masters student April Kelly and Environmental Management doctoral student Richard James were awarded Geological Society of America (GSA) Student Research Grants. April Kelly was awarded $1875 to fund her paleoclimate thesis research on an International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) core from the Baltic Sea. Her research will examine particle size, geochemistry, and varve chronology of sediment cores from the southwest Baltic to better constrain Scandinavian ice sheet advance and retreat during Heinrich event I and the Bolling/Allerod warming on a high-resolution time scale. The GSA award will be used to complete x-ray fluorescence core scanning analysis at the University of Bremen, Center for Marine Environmental Science (MARUM) in Bremen, Germany, where the IODP cores reside 

Richard James was awarded $2250 to fund his thesis research on lead contamination in soils in Jersey City. His research will examine lead and other heavy metal contaminants in urban brownfields that are under evaluation for community gardens. Green house experiments will test the phytoextraction abilities of native New Jersey plants, and evaluate where metals reside in produce grown in contaminated soils.

B.S. in Earth and Environmental Science major Christina Verhagen won a $750 award from the National Association of Geoscience Teachers Scholarships for outstanding students pursuing field studies. The award will support Christina’s participation in the EAES Summer Field Camp (EAES404) led by Professors Gorring, Pope, Blacic, and Galster.