Sedimentary Records of Environmental Change Lab Personnel
Lab Director, Darrell Kaufman
I study geologic records of environmental changes,
particularly those related to climate, that have shaped the Earth’s surface
during the recent past and that operate on millennial time scales.
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Nick McKay, Post Doctorate
I am a postdoctoral scholar working with Dr. Kaufman on synthesizing climate records of climatic and environmental change across the mid-Holocene transition from sites around the Arctic. I recently completed my Ph.D. in geosciences at the University of Arizona, where I primarily worked on a long lake record from tropical West Africa. I completed my undergraduate and Master's degree at Northern Arizona University, where I studied how climate signals are recorded in Arctic Lakes, and used lake records and glacial landforms to reconstruct Holocene climate variability in southern Alaska.
I am Flagstaff native, and am happy to be back in town, along with my wife and our three young boys.
Lab Manager, Katherine Cooper
I attained my Master’s degree in Environmental and Soil Science
from the University of Tennessee, and currently manage both the Sedimentary
Records of Environmental Change lab, and the Amino Acid Geochronology lab.
Graduate Students
Brandon Boldt, Quaternary Science
While
the other kids were playing in the sandbox, I was busy coring it! Now, “all
grown up”, I find myself playing in much colder regions, driven by my
fascination with polar climate variability. As a second year graduate student
in the Quaternary Science Program at NAU, my current research looks at changes
in glacial mass balance and flood frequency/intensity through lacustrine
sediments extracted from three arctic lakes in Kurupa Valley, Alaska.
John Griffith, Geology
I
am a second-year Master’s student in the NAU Geology program. My research interests lie in multi-proxy
Holocene paleoclimate records preserved in lacustrine sediment. My current research focuses on reconstructing
climate variability in southern Alaska through a multi-proxy analysis of
sediment cores from Lake Tokun, lower Copper River, Alaska.
Anne Krawiec, Geology
I
am currently a graduate student at NAU in Geology. I formerly worked as an
Environmental Geologist for a small consulting firm and graduated from the
College of Wooster in 2006 in Geology. My research interests lie in multi-proxy
Quaternary paleoclimate records. My current research is focused on comparing
lake sediment cores from the central Aleutian Islands, Alaska with multiple
proxies.
Taylor LaBrecque, Geology
I am a first year
Geology Master’s student at NAU. I graduated from Union College in NY this past
spring. I am interested in environmental and climatic changes recorded in
lacustrine sediment and am currently working on a project involving the paleoclimate
reconstruction of a proglacial lake in Homer, Alaska.
Coming Soon!
Paul Zander, Environmental Science
I am a senior environmental
science major working on a NASA funded climate change fellowship. My research
focuses on analyzing the lake sediment record of Cabin Lake, Alaska for
information about climate variability over the past 1000 years in the northeast
pacific. Changes in sediment type show changes in climate and glacial extent in
the Gulf of Alaska region. I hope to use biogenic silica as a proxy for
summertime temperatures at the Cabin Lake site.
Undergraduate Researchers
Dion Obermeyer, Environmental Science
I
am currently an undergraduate in Environmental Science – Applied geology at
NAU. My research interests lie in Holocene lacustrine sediment records. Current
research is based on lacustrine sediment retrieved from Svalbard, Norway. I am
using annual sediment traps in addition to sediment cores to analyze the inflow
of sediment and reconstruct the paleoclimate in the area.
Lab Technicians
Jason Center
Alyssa Hermosisima
I
am a post baccalaureate preparing to start a Masters degree in Biology. I
graduated from NAU in May 2012 with a B.S. in Biomedical Sciences and a minor
in Chemistry. In the spring of 2013 I will begin graduate studies conducting
biochemical tests on a skeletal muscle protein called titin. Currently, I work
in both the Sediment Lab and the Amino Acid Geochronology Lab as a research
assistant helping process geological samples.