Current lab members

Michal Ben-Israel, Postdoctoral Fellow, UC Merced

Michal joined the group in fall 2021. Her project explores how microbial weathering impacts landscape evolution. She uses cosmogenic nuclides to quantify weathering and soil production rates in recently deglaciated regions and works in collaboration with the Beman Lab at UC Merced to quantify associated microbial diversity in soils and rocks.

Seth Gilchrist, PhD student, UC Merced

Seth is a grad student in the Environmental Systems graduate group and started his PhD journey at UC Merced in Fall 2021. He is primarily interested in sediment transport and how sediments alter and their effects on landscape evolution over time. Currently he is researching the possible differences that climate and topography have on chemical weathering in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada range.

Kolleen Peyakov and Jazmin Nevarez Campos, Undergraduate Researchers, and Keith Buchignani, Lab and Field Assistant Extraordinaire, are currently working on projects involving weathering and geochemistry in the Sierra Nevada. Luciano Gnerre is a recent graduate (congrats, Luciano!) who served as a Field Assistant in summer 2022.

Co-advised students

Dina Fieman, PhD Candidate, Victoria University of Wellington

Co-supervised with Jamie Howarth and Kevin Norton

Dina’s dissertation (“quantifying the post-seismic sediment cascade and its impact of river dynamics”) addresses the cascade of sediment moving through landscapes in the wake of earthquake-induced landslide events like the 2016 earthquake in Kaikōura, New Zealand. She uses a combination of field work, numerical modeling, and cosmogenic nuclides.

Eron Raines, PhD Candidate, Victoria University of Wellington and University of Wollongong

Co-supervised with Kevin Norton, Anthony Dosetto, and Julie DeSlippe

Eron’s dissertation (“An Ecology of Chemical Weathering”) examines the connections between soil production, weathering, and microbiology. He uses U-series dating, mean residence times from radiocarbon, and a variety of biogeochemical analyses in soils from active landscapes in New Zealand.

Former students

Maia Bellingham (VUW, MSc 2020):  Spatial patterns in erosion rates across a climate transect in the Southern Alps using cosmogenic nuclides. Maia is now employed in the environmental consulting field in Auckland.

Undergraduates: Marlie (nee Malone) Schell (BS, U. Wyoming); field and lab techs Evan Soderburg, Jeffrey Frey (U. Wyoming); GEOG 325 Weathering team (VUW)