Shannon Valley is a 3rd year PhD student in EAS. Her line of research is paleoclimate/paleoceanography which involves reconstructing past ocean circulation using geochemical proxies in order to understand the ocean’s role in abrupt climate change. Recently she presented the poster "Timing of Deglacial AMOC Variability from a High-resolution Seawater Cadmium Reconstruction" at the International Conference on Paleoceanography.

Shannon received a BA in Political Science and International Studies (2007) from Northwestern University and an MS in EAS awarded Summer 2016 under the advisement of Dr. Jean Lynch-Stieglitz. She has worked for five years in NASA’s Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs in Washington, DC and was awarded the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal in 2014 for communicating NASA science (including Earth science) on Capitol Hill. During her time in DC, she also spent six months working in the West Wing, for the Domestic Policy Council in the Executive Office of the President. In 2015 Shannon was awarded the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. She is currently the 2016-2017 University Relations Chair for Georgia Tech’s Black Graduate Student Association.

Her interests lie at the intersections of science and society. She spends a lot of time thinking about how scientific understanding of Earth systems can support those who are least equipped to handle changes to our climate and how our political and economic systems may help or hinder those efforts. In her spare time, Shannon enjoys traveling, yoga, hiking, and plane spotting.