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.

Zachary Meeks is a 2nd year Ph.D. student researching Space Plasma Physics, under the direction of Dr. Sven Simon. His undergraduate degree is a B.S. in Physics (Astrophysics) from Georgia Tech. While in undergrad he published “Is J Enough? Comparison of Gravitational Waves Emitted Along the Total Angular Momentum Direction with Other Preferred Orientations” (2012) and “Efficient Asymptotic Frame Selection for Binary Black Hole Spacetimes using Asymptotic Radiation” (2011).

Sebastian Ortega started his graduate degree in Fall 2011. His line of research is focuses on Tropical Meteorology with Dr. Peter Webster. Specifically, he studies the South Asia Monsoon, and is interested both in its intra-seasonal and intra-annual variability. Within the research group, they study closely what happens in the upper troposphere as well as in the lower troposphere, and try to understand how both might interact.

Jia He is a 5th year Ph.D. candidate who received her B.S. in Atmospheric Sciences from Nanjing University in Nanjing, China. She is currently being advised by Dr. Robert Black with whom she co-published an article with entitled "Characterizing Arctic Spring Onset" which can be found in the Journal of Climate (2015). She has been working on identifying and characterizing rapid spring onset events and associated atmospheric dynamical processes in the Arctic. In her spare time, Jia enjoys working out at the gym and reading fiction novels.

Emily Christ is a 5th year graduate student whose line of research entails applyingweather forecast data to problems in agriculture. She earned herBachelor and Master of Science in Engineering, both from the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Emily worked as an environmental engineering consultant prior to relocating to Atlanta with her husband, Joey. Currently she is a licensed Professional Engineer in both Alabama and Georgia.

James Hite is a 5th year graduate student whose line of research includes aerosols, clouds, and climate. His thesis will focus on thermodynamics of secondary organic aerosol. James received a B.S. in EAS in 2011 and an M.S. in EAS in 2012,both under the direction of Dr. Thanos Nenes.

Lucas Liuzzo is a 2nd year PhD student studying space physics, more specifically moon-magnetosphere interactions, under the advisement of Dr. Sven Simon. He graduated with a Bachelor's of Science and Engineering from the University of Michigan in 2014. While there, he studied thermosphere-ionosphere coupling in the Earth's upper atmosphere. Currently, he models the interaction between Callisto (a Galilean moon of Jupiter) and the Jovian magnetosphere.

Yohei Takano is a 4th year graduate student whose line of research involves working with Dr. Takamitsu Ito on understanding large-scale ocean biogeochemical cycles, including dissolved oxygen, nutrients, and carbon cycles. The main focus of his research is to understand how ocean biogeochemical cycles responds to climate variability and long-term climatic change, such as global warming. Currently, Yohei is working on understanding how oxygen minimum zones evolve under the influence of human induced climate change, which could involve both physical and biological response in the ocean.

Lujendra (Luju) Ojha is a 3rd year PhD student in Planetary Science with a Volcanology minor. He received his BS in Geo-physics with a Planetary Science minor from the University of Arizona in 2012. With his advisor Dr. James Wray, his main research interest is understanding the evolution of terrestrial planets. He’s passionate about studying present day geological features on planetary bodies across the solar system. Luju has worked on Earth, Mars, Moon, asteroids, comets, and has also classified various meteorites.

Pamela Grothe is a 4th year PhD candidate currently researching paleoclimate - reconstructing tropical Pacific climate through the last 6,000 years using geochemistry from fossil corals. She received a B.S. in geology from Mary Washington College, an M.S. in geology from the University of Colorado and was a part of the Sigma Delta Epsilon/Graduate Women in Science Fellowship for the 2014-2015 academic year. Pamela currently has a paper in review in G-cubed titled, "A comparison of rapid-screen 14C and U/Th dates: Implications for paleoclimate reconstruction."