James Hite -
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. Some of his accomplishments include Air & Waste Management Association’s Southern Section Scholarship (August 2015), NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship (May 2015), National Instruments Certified LabVIEW Associate Developer (June 2013), Glen Cass Award (April 2013), and Student Poster Competition Winner at the American Association for Aerosol Research 31st Annual Conference (October 2012).
His future projects include field deployment this spring to Korea with aerosol research group from NASA Langley: KORUS-AQ. He is currently working on publications based on previous field deployment with NASA group, collaborative smog chamber experiments at Caltech, and ongoing development of a measurement & modeling technique for estimating organic aerosol volatility.
James says that other interests of his include arguing pointlessly about things like current events, politics, and philosophy. Anything that tends to evoke a visceral response in folks, for instance, cats are better than dogs. He is both the graduate student senator for the EAS department and the Secretary of Graduate SGA. James enjoys listening to podcasts or music during work. His current music playlist includes both Fleshgod Apocalypse and The J. Gelis Band. During his spare time, he chooses video games as his entertainment of choice.
Lucas Luizzo -
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.
Lucas has a peer-reviewed article in JGR - Space Physics that he published as an undergraduate student at Michigan. Additionally, a paper in JGR - Space Physics was just accepted to be published and should be available shortly. This most recent manuscript is a culmination of the work he’s done so far while in EAS since he arrived last year. It focuses on quantifying the effect that Callisto's atmosphere has on the plasma signatures around the moon, something that has never been done before! For this research, he received 1st prize for best presentation at the International School/Symposium for Space Simulations, held this past summer in Prague, Czech Republic.
Lucas is also the chairman of the GEAS (Graduates in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences) committee. GEAS focuses on enhancing graduate student life and fosters professional and social development for graduate students in EAS. In his spare time, he loves to cook, bake various breads, and he enjoys running.
Yohei Takano -
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.
Before coming to Georgia Tech, Yohei obtained an M.S. in Atmospheric Sciences from Colorado State University. He says that training from the atmospheric science field really helped him on developing interdisciplinary understanding and research approach on coupled processes between climate change/variability and ocean biogeochemical cycles.
During his spare time he enjoys cooking and eating. Yohei says cooking helped him communicate with people from different cultures and he loves to share recipes with his friends. Most recently, Yohei is wrapping up his research for publications and his dissertation.
Lujendra Ojha -
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. His greatest accomplishment to date was discovering streams of water on Mars, by understanding the formation mechanism of Recurring Slope Lineae (RSL).
Mr. Ojha has several peer-reviewed publications and awards which include a Research Excellence Award and Lunar and Planetary Institute Career Award from the National Science Foundation. When he was at the University of Arizona he received an Honorary Presidents Award and placed first in the Physical Science Research Annual Student Showcase.
Most recently Luju has gone to France for a month long NSF-GROW Fellowship.
Pamela Grothe -
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."
For her current project, she is reconstructing the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) between 2000 and 6000 years ago from fossil corals from Christmas Island, central tropical Pacific. Future projections of the strength of ENSO, the largest source of year-to-year climate extremes, are highly uncertain. The instrumental record of ENSO activity is too short in time to resolve potential anthropogenic trends in ENSO properties. Coral oxygen isotopes, alternatively, provide monthly-resolved ENSO activity, and extend back 7000 years ago from islands in the central tropical Pacific. Pamela says her initial results suggest a ~60% reduction in ENSO activity between 3000 and 5000 years ago. She goes on to say, “This work is significant as it will allow us to uncover mechanisms behind past ENSO variability and refine simulations of ENSO in climate models.”
In her spare time, Pamela enjoys running, biking, swimming, hiking, camping, kayaking, and SCUBA diving. She also exclaims, “I love my yellow lab rescue dog, Cooper!”
Emily Saad -
The ultimate fate of materials in soils and sediments has relevance to both contaminant transport processes and global biogeochemical cycles. Consequently, we focus on the transformation of specific species in these subsurface environments. Chromium has become the second most common metal contaminant in the United States because of its utility in many industrial processes motivating us to study the stability of chromium containing solids. Furthermore, we are interested in unraveling an unclear process involving silica that occurs in marine sediments and may directly influence ocean pH.
Before returning to school to complete her B.S. in Chemistry at Georgia Tech (2010), Emily worked on various organic farms assisting in the development of sustainable farming practices and also at USU’s Water Research Lab collecting data for hydraulic and habitat simulations. Emily moved to New Zealand before entering into and completing an M.S. program in Chemistry at Northern Arizona University (2013). Emily is now working towards a PhD with Dr. Yuanzhi Tang and enjoys live music, tap dancing, and teaching step aerobics.
Melissa Warren -
My research focuses on the interactions between nitrogen and methane cycling in a northern latitude peatland in northern Minnesota, the site of the DOE Spruce and Peatland Responses Under Climatic and Environmental Change (SPRUCE) experiment. SPRUCE is a large-scale mesocosm project studying the effects of increased CO2 and temperatures on a nutrient-poor peatland ecosystem. Peatlands and permafrost regions have gained increased interest due to the predicted rise in temperature expected to impact these regions in the next century. The future of peatland’s role in the sequestration or release of carbon to the atmosphere is uncertain. For my Master’s research, I measured spatial and temporal variation in nitrogen fixation rates under varying temperature and methane concentrations for SPRUCE peat samples. My PhD research will investigate the response of microbial nitrogen and methane cycling to warming and elevated CO2.
Melissa I graduated cum laude from Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Georgia with a B.S. in Biology. She serves on the student committee for the 2015 Southeastern Biogeochemical Symposium and is currently completing her Master’s work in the group of Dr. Jennifer Glass and will begin her PhD in the summer. Dr. Joel Kostka and Dr. Chris Schadt (ORNL) are members on her Master’s committee. When Melissa is not working on her research, she can be found anywhere outside, running, hiking, horseback riding, and relaxing with friends and family.
Mary Benage -
My research aims to understand the thermal evolution of pyroclastic flows during a volcanic eruption. Pyroclastic flows are composed of hot gas and rocks, and are fast moving currents that propagate due to the density differential between the flow and the ambient atmosphere. Due to the hazards and inability to see within a pyroclastic flow, we do not know how the temperature of the flow evolves or how particles are concentrated. Therefore, we do not fully understand the associated dynamics and hazards. I use multiphase numerical models that are constrained with field data and observations to study the internal physics and dynamics of the pyroclastic flows. I specifically work to examine the thermal evolution in order to constrain the concentration of particles and efficiency of the flows to entrain colder ambient air during the 2006 eruption of Tungurahua volcano, Ecuador.
Mary graduated summa cum laude from Mesa State College in Grand Junction, CO with a B.S. in Geology. She then did a one-year post-baccalaureate internship at Los Alamos National Laboratory. She is currently finishing up her Ph.D. in Dr. Dufek’s volcanology group and serves as the chair of the Graduates in EAS group. Mary received the Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. In her spare time, Mary enjoys running, hiking, volunteering, and traveling.
Salah Faroughi -
The amount of volatiles and the dynamics of bubbles play a significant role on the transition between different volcanic eruption behaviors. The transport of exsolved volatiles through zoned magma chambers is complex and remains poorly constrained. Salah, in his PhD study, mainly focuses on the different transport of volatiles under two end member regimes: crystal-poor systems (bubbles form a suspension) versus crystal-rich reservoirs (multiphase porous media flow). To contrast the differences between the transports of exsolved volatiles in both regimes, the transport of a non-wetting phase in suspensions and porous media are characterized, separately, and then the effect of the transition zone on the over all flux is taken into account.
Investigating the dynamics of multi-particle systems to correctly integrate the effect of particle interactions on the rheological, mechanical and thermal properties of condensed matter is another aspect of his research interest.
Salah completed his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering at Urmia University (Iran) in 2009, his M.S. in Mechanical Engineering at Sharif University of Technology (Iran) in 2011, and recently completed another M.S. in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech.
Ryan Cahalan -
The overarching goal of my research is to characterize and quantify the dynamics of subaqueous explosive volcano (aka Neptunian) eruptions. Neptunian eruptions are far less understood than their subaerial counterparts, yet equally hazardous. This discrepancy arises due to the near impossibility of collecting real-time eruption data. To gain insight into these systems, I am developing a multiphase fluid dynamics model, as well as a Neptunian Eruption Simulation Tank, to simulate (1) how fragmentation occurs (2) how material and heat are transported/deposited, and (3) how tsunamis are generated, during these eruptions. The overall goal is to use the model in concert with the experiments and field data to reproduce the 2012 eruption dynamics at Havre Volcano, New Zealand, the largest observed submarine eruptions in the last century.
Ryan graduated with Honors from the University of Texas at Austin with a B.S. in Geology. In 2012, Ryan received the Outstanding Student Paper Award at the American Geophysical Union meeting. He currently serves as chair of the Graduate Student EAS Seminar committee and organizer of the Geophysics Seminar. In Ryan's free time he enjoys brewing beer, watching/playing sports, and general adventuring.