Research Statement

The excitement that I exude in the classroom stems from my passions for geography, science, knowledge, and education, passions which also fuel my active research campaign. I constantly strive to combine a variety of techniques in my research from modeling and GIS to the development of autonomous field observation stations. For research on the Greenland Ice Sheet, I developed ‘Smart Stakes’, autonomous weather and mass-balance monitoring stations for NASA’s PARCA project. I also developed an analytical snow-melt model which may soon be incorporated in the Polar MM5 as another collaboration effort, also funded by NASA. I have published a seminal paper on techniques for measuring changes in ice-covered area using remote sensing.

One of my previously funded research projects was a truly-interdisciplinary study of a glacierized watershed in the high Peruvian Andes. My co-PI and I assembled a group of scientists including climatologists, glaciologists, cartographers, geologists, soil microbiologists, botanists, biologists, and anthropologists, as well as undergraduate student researchers, mountaineers, and photographers. Our research funded the entire group to travel to this watershed, conduct an array of research activities including establishing the world’s highest GLORIA site, and even chartering an aircraft which was used to take repeat photography of the area.

While my primary research foci involve contemporary climate change, mountain glaciers, ice sheets, and remote sensing, particularly land cover change, my interests are more generally in surface climatology and measurements, and in geographic education. I have recently branched out to help develop a 50 meter wind tower to study wind profiles in northern Ohio in preparation for a larger wind energy project, and am separately conducting a study of North American road networks, their effect on climate, especially through snow removal in winter. My previous research endeavors have been fully or partially funded by NASA and CIRES (a NOAA joint institute), and have included remote sensing of changes in land cover, including urban encroachment on wetland areas, the recession of glaciers and ice caps, and has included lengthy field work, and numerical modeling.

As my current position included no research component, I have had less time than I would like to focus on my research, publishing, and seeking new grants, however, I fully anticipate an active externally-funded research agenda once in a tenure-track position. Still, in my position as an instructor teaching 5-days a week, I managed to actively participate in all departmental meetings, in student recruitment campaigns, worked independently with a number of undergraduates to conduct their own research, and continued writing and expanding my own research endeavors. I am equally eager to involve students and other faculty in my research, collaborate, and share my expertise whenever and wherever possible.