UNC Dept of Earth, Marine & Environmental Sciences

@unc-emes.bsky.social

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Department of Earth, Marine & Environmental Sciences (EMES) at UNC Chapel Hill. Established July 2021 from the Geological Sciences and Marine Sciences departments and the UNC Institute of Marine Sciences. https://emes.unc.edu/

Group photo of several members of the EMES community at ASLO25.
PhD student Emma Dempsey giving a talk at ASLO 2025. She is standing behind a podium and the slide next to her has her talk title, antimicrobial resistance and the stress of climate change-driven coastal storms on wastewater systems.
Department of Earth, Marine and Environmental Sciences Poster Presentations in Exhibit Hall A 6:00 PM Saturday, March 29 The Influence of Physical Processes on Phytoplankton Community Structure in the Galapagos Archipelago (SS09P-9402) Margarita Lankford Graduate Student Modeling Carbon Biogeochemical Cycling in Integrated Lake and River Networks (SS35P-9423) Veronica Slevin Graduate Student Fluorometric Assay for the Detection of Methanol in Aquatic Environments and Bacterial Cultures (SS02P-9502) Keshav Srivenkatesh Undergraduate Student
Department of Earth, Marine and Environmental Sciences Oral Presentations Saturday, March 29 10:15 AM W207CD Physiological Response of Small Eukaryotic Phytoplankton to Differing Nitrogen Regimes in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre (SS18A-9050) Dr. Raquel Flynn Postdoctoral Scholar 3:45 PM W205CD Battling Trophic Modes: How Do Mixotrophs Respond to Iron Limitation in Upwelling Zones? (SS19A-8988) Emily Speciale Graduate Student
Department of Earth, Marine and Environmental Sciences Oral Presentations Saturday, March 29 9:00 AM W205CD Biogeochemical and ecological impacts of ~30 years of elevated tropical cyclone activity on North Carolina’s estuarine and coastal waters (SS45-9143) Dr. Hans Paerl Professor 9:45 AM W205CD Antimicrobial Resistance and the Stress of Climate Change-Driven Coastal Flooding on Wastewater Systems (SS45-9257) Emma Dempsey Graduate Student 10:15 AM W205CD Long-Term Analysis of Gulf Stream Variability at Cape Hatteras Using High-Frequency Radar Surface Current Observations (SS45-9459) Yubeen Jeong Graduate Student
Flyer highlighting presentations from members of UNC EMES at the ASLO meeting. The text reads: Department of Earth, Marine and Environmental Sciences Oral Presentations Friday, March 28 2:30 PM W201ABCD Selfish Uptake of Polysaccharides by Marine Heterotrophic Bacteria at Elevated Hydrostatic Pressure (SS10B-9105) Dr. Chad Lloyd Postdoctoral Scholar 3:00 PM W208 Alleviation of Phytoplankton Light Limitation by Salinity Intrusion in a CDOM Rich, Oligohaline Estuary (CS09-8766) Dr. Mingying Chuo Postdoctoral Scholar
Logo for the 2025 ASLO Meeting. On top of a background image of an ocean wave, the text reads Taking the Aquatic Pulse Aquatic Sciences Meeting 26-31 March 2025 in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA
Dark blue flyer with a picture of MS student Aundre Jackson and the following text - "MS Thesis Defense of Aundre Jackson Wednesday March 26 at 10:30 am Murray 3204 and Zoom. To what extent does V. fischeri use T6SS weapons to invade an already colonized territory?"
Flyer that says Give UNC 3-25-25 and lists three department names - Earth, Marine and Environmental Sciences, Institute of Marine Sciences, and Environment, Ecology and Energy Program. There is a donation box in the bottom right corner with a pink heart
Member of the UNC Global Hydrology Lab, Jack Dechow, standing in a parking lot with 8 orange bags of trash. He is smiling and giving two thumbs up.
Dark blue flyer with a picture of PhD candidate Aliyah Griffith and the following text - "Congratulations to our newest doctor Aliyah Griffith on the successful defense of her dissertation, coral reef structure, community composition shifts, and the complexities of coral reef management across three regions in the Greater Caribbean and Florida, on March 17!
Dark blue flyer with a picture of MS student Jack Baer and the following text - "MS Thesis Defense of Jack Baer Friday March 21 at 12:00 pm Murray 3204 and Zoom. Design storms underestimate flood hazard and risk derived from stochastic storm transposition."
Dark blue flyer with a picture of PhD candidate Nicholas Funnell and the following text - "Ph.D. Dissertation Defense of Nicholas Funnell Friday March 21 at 9:00 am IMS 222 and Zoom. The Influence of Ecological Interactions and Environmental Context on Shellfish Mariculture and Restoration Outcomes in North Carolina"
Blue flyer with a headshot of Lauren Grimley and the following text - "Congratulations to our newest doctor, Lauren Grimley, on the successful defense of her dissertation, characterizing the role of compound processes on tropical cyclone floods, on March 3!
Screenshot of Figure 6 from Grimley et al. (2025). Fig. 6 The maximum extent of compound flooding for Hurricanes Florence, Floyd, and Matthew (left column) and the frequency of an area experiencing compound flooding across the future ensemble simulations (right column).Areas flooded by individual processes (e.g., rainfall, coastal) are not plotted. The entire domain is shown in the top panel and the black rectangle highlights the location of the Wilmington metropolitan area which is shown in the bottom panel. Present-only is in pink, future-only is the maximum extent of compound flooding across the full ensemble in orange, and both present and future is in blue. Darker red colors indicate a higher probability of compound flooding occurring in the future across all ensemble members. In the future, the model results show an expansion of compound areas further inland and a widening of the floodplain for all three storms.
Group photo from the 2024 EMES AGU reception. There is a full room of people smiling.
Screenshot of a post by North Star of GIS: People of African-Descent in GIS highlighting a panel. Text above the flyer reads "📅 Mark your calendars! We’re kicking off Black History Month 2025 with a powerful series of conversations as we amplify voices, advance equity, and build connections to reshape industries and drive impactful change. 🔗 Register here: https://northstarofgis.org/BHM/ #BHM2025." The flyer has a black background with red, green and yellow accents. There are photos of the two panelists, Aliyah Griffith and Jeanelle Brisbane, and the moderator Clinton Johnson. Text on the flyer reads "North Star of GIS Standing on Business Mapping and Exploring Black Impacts on Industries. Thursday February 6, 2025 3-4 pm EST. Exploring Futures - Marine Ecosystems and Community Innovation. Speakers: Aliyah Griffith and Jeanelle Brisbane. Moderator: Clinton G. Johnson."
Kate Leonard, Caroline Maxon and Avalon Rosenberger, senior undergraduate field site students, are dividing a sediment core on the beach of Carrot Island. They are looking for peat, a carbon rich layer of sediment they can use to quantify the carbon stock of the island.
View of a flooded river channel entering a lake. Green wetlands surround the river channel, which is full of brown water. The photo is taken from a low-flying plane and there are sparse clouds over some of the landcape.
Drone image of a white boat and 5 researchers out in a coastal wetland.
Four people stand on an oyster reef on a sunny day. They are setting up a tall GPS pole.
Eve is smiling on a windy beach.
Dark blue background with a photo of Kennet E. Flores, his name, the NSF logo, and the text "NSF CAREER award 2025-2030 Award # 2442046"
Info flyer for SciREN 2025 Coast Networking event
Photo of Dr. Hans Paerl standing in front of a blue sky, green trees, and blue water. He is smiling and wearing a green shirt that says "got nitrogen?"
Dark blue flyer with a picture of PhD candidate Melanie Cohn and the following text - "Ph.D. Dissertation Defense of Melanie Cohn Friday, January 17 at 12:30 pm, Murray Hall 3402 and Zoom. Bacterial Metabolism Mediates Biogeochemical Cycling in the Open and Coastal Ocean"
Picture of Dr. Antonia Sebastian and text that reads "Thursday, January 16 8:30 - 8:45 am Room 209 13A.1 - Assessing Climate Risks at Urban Scales Using Large-Scale Hydrodynamic Models (invited). Dr. Antonia Sebastian, Assistant Professor" The 105th AMS Meeting logo is at the bottom of the graphic.
Picture of Dr. Rick Luettich and text that reads "Tuesday, January 14 5:30 - 5:45 pm Room 218. 8.4 - Blending Parametric and Gridded Models of Tropical Cyclone Wind and Pressure Fields. Dr. Rick Luettich Distinguished Professor." The 105th AMS Meeting logo is at the bottom of the graphic.
!AlertCarolina! Adverse Conditions: Critical - University moving to Condition 2 at 3:30 pm today, Jan. 10. More Info: http://alertcarolina.unc.edu
Two-tone blue background with a picture of Dr. John Gardner and the text "Welcome Dr. John Gardner to UNC Earth, Marine and Environmental Sciences! Learn more about the research and opportunities in his lab https://gardnerlab.weebly.com/people.html"
Image of students hiking up a snowy mountain trail with blue sky. Text over the image reads "Happy FDOC! Spring 2025"
Congratulations August and December 2024 Graduates! Earth and Marine Sciences Matthew Paris, M.S. Adrian Smith, B.S. Marine Sciences Yuan Yu (Johnson) Lin, Ph.D. Geological Sciences Xikai Wang, Ph.D. Alexander Longo, M.S. Sofia Marino, M.S. Kristy Blough, B.S. Eian Hoots, B.S.
Old Well on the UNC Chapel Hill campus with a light dusting of snow on the roof and bushes nearby.
Department of Earth, Marine and Environmental Sciences Afternoon Poster Presentations 13:40 - 17:30 Friday, December 13 Coastlines and People: Convergence Science Between Coastal Sustainability, Human Dimensions, and Coastal Processes III & IV Poster (OS53B & OS53C) Co-convened by Dr. Laura Moore Professor Leveraging GEDI and Multisource Remote Sensing for Enhanced Forest Canopy Height Estimation in Southeast North Carolina (B53C-1761) Dr. Chao Wang Research Assistant Professor Strategies for Useable Climate Information for Resilient Designs Under NOAA Atlas 14 (A53J-2235) Dr. Marissa Webber Postdoc
Department of Earth, Marine and Environmental Sciences Morning Poster Presentations 8:30 - 12:20 Friday, December 13 Strategic Location of Flow-Control Obstructions for Saltwater Intrusion Resilience in Coastal Freshwater Forests on the North American Coastal Plain (H51W-1033) Isabela Arauz Graduate Student River discharge routing on complex river networks (H51L-0852) Elyssa Collins Recent Postdoc
Department of Earth, Marine and Environmental Science Oral Presentations Friday, December 13 8:30 - 10:00 156 Coastlines and People: Convergence Science Between Coastal Sustainability, Human Dimensions, and Coastal Processes I Oral (OS51A) Co-convened by Dr. Laura Moore Professor 8:30 - 10:00 Archives (Marriott Marquis) Compound, Consecutive, and Cascading Events: Challenges for Risk Assessment and Management II Oral (NH51A) Co-convened by Dr. Antonia Sebastian Assistant Professor 9:40 Archives (Marriott Marquis) Methodology for Quantifying Consecutive Multi-Hazards with Temporal Dependence: an Application to Hot and Wet Hazards (NH51A-07A) Hunter Quintal Graduate Student
Department of Earth, Marine and Environmental Sciences Afternoon Poster Presentations 13:40 - 17:30 Thursday, December 12 Heterogeneities Within Subduction-related Serpentine Mélanges: Insights From Juxtaposed Deep and Shallow Subduction Interface Sections (V43A-3188) Dr. Kennet Flores Assistant Professor Subduction Zone Rocks and Processes: From the Trench to the Subarc I & II Poster (V43A & V43B) Co-convened by Dr. Kennet Flores Assistant Professor Enigmatic metatrondhjemite enclosed in an exhumed, subduction-interface, serpentinite-mélange (Guatemala Suture Zone): Insights into potential fossilized slab-melts (V43B-3193) Anna Strickland Graduate Student
Department of Earth, Marine and Environmental Sciences Morning Poster Presentations 8:30 - 12:20 Thursday, December 12 Climate Change Exacerbates Compound Flooding in the Carolinas from Three Recent Tropical Cyclones (NH41D-2348) Lauren Grimley Graduate Student Multihazard Flood Modeling: From Inland to Coast II Poster (NH41D) Co-convened by Lauren Grimley Graduate Student
Department of Earth, Marine and Environmental Sciences Oral Presentations Thursday, December 12 9:20 144A-C Moving Beyond the Design Storm: Probabilistic Flood Hazard Mapping Using Modified Stochastic Storm Transposition (H41F-06) Jack Baer Graduate Student 8:30 - 10:00 Salon A Analysis of Urban Hazard Inequities Across Scales: Connecting Regional to Local Urban Dynamics and Policy I Oral (GC41A) Co-convened by Hunter Quintal Graduate Student
Department of Earth, Marine and Environmental Sciences Afternoon Poster Presentations 13:40 - 17:30 Thursday, December 12 Heterogeneities Within Subduction-related Serpentine Mélanges: Insights From Juxtaposed Deep and Shallow Subduction Interface Sections (V43A-3188) Dr. Kennet Flores Assistant Professor Subduction Zone Rocks and Processes: From the Trench to the Subarc I & II Poster (V43A & V43B) Co-convened by Dr. Kennet Flores Assistant Professor Enigmatic metatrondhjemite enclosed in an exhumed, subduction-interface, serpentinite-mélange (Guatemala Suture Zone): Insights into potential fossilized slab-melts (V43B-3193) Anna Strickland Graduate Student
Department of Earth, Marine and Environmental Sciences Morning Poster Presentations 8:30 - 12:20 Thursday, December 12 Climate Change Exacerbates Compound Flooding in the Carolinas from Three Recent Tropical Cyclones (NH41D-2348) Lauren Grimley Graduate Student Multihazard Flood Modeling: From Inland to Coast II Poster (NH41D) Co-convened by Lauren Grimley Graduate Student
Department of Earth, Marine and Environmental Sciences Afternoon Poster Presentations 13:40 - 17:30 Wednesday, December 11 Growing With the Flow: Interactions Between Exposure, Currents, and Intertidal Oyster Reef Growth (EP33B-1343) Sophie Brager Undergraduate Student Transition of Oyster Reefs from Subtidal to Intertidal under Conditions of Sea-level Rise and Land Use Change (EP33B-1357) Eve Eisemann Graduate Student Sedimentological Analysis of Spatial Variations in Seagrass Blue Carbon Deposition (EP33B-1353) Olivia Key Undergraduate Student Radiogenic isotope geochemical characterization of the mineralization at Buffalo Valley Mine, NV (V33D-3129) Alexis Lopez Graduate Student
Department of Earth, Marine and Environmental Sciences Morning Poster Presentations 8:30 - 12:20 Wednesday, December 11 SWOT River Database (SWORD) Updates and Structure: Impacts on SWOT Vector Products (H31Z-0939) Dr. Elizabeth Altenau Research Specialist Orographic precipitation modulates landscape response to differential uplift across the southern Cascadia forearc (EP31D-1241) William Hefner Graduate Student BRAID: An Algorithm to Constrain Braided River Discharge Estimates Using SWOT (H31Z-0924) Marissa Hughes Graduate Student Validation of SWOT in the Yukon-Porcupine River catchments, Alaska (H31Z-0927) Camryn Kluetmeier Research Specialist
Department of Earth, Marine and Environmental Sciences Oral and eLightning Presentations Wednesday, December 9 8:30 - 10:00 152B Status, Trends, and Processes of Lake and River Ice I Oral (GC31H) Co-convened by Dr. Audrey Thellman Postdoc 9:10 147B Building a Global Lake Observation System through the Lake Observations by Citizen Scientists and Satellites (LOCSS) Project (H31F-05) Dr. Tamlin Pavelsky Professor 10:20 - 11:50 eLightning Theater 2 The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) Mission: New Frontiers in Hydrology VI eLightning (H32G) Co-convened by Dr. Tamlin Pavelsky Professor 10:50 Independence A-C (Marriott Marquis) Addressing Local Parameter Uncertainty for Climate Resilient Urban Stormwater Modeling and Decision Making (NH32C-04) Dr. Marissa Webber Postdoc
Department of Earth, Marine and Environmental Sciences Poster Presentations Tuesday, December 9 8:30 - 12:20 Surrogate Modeling and Constrained Optimization to Improve Estimates Snow Water Equivalent: A Comparison of Linear and Non-Linear Methods to Merge Regional Climate Model Estimates and Remote Sensing Observations (C21E-0406) Jack Dechow Postdoc 13:40 - 17:30 Community Science Increases Access to Water and Air Quality Data in Coastal North Carolina, USA (A23H-2066) Dr. Haley Plaas PhD ‘23 13:40 - 17:30 Transient incision recorded in river profiles in the Blue Mountains: landscape response to differential uplift (EP23B-1313) Muhammad Sadiq Graduate Student
Department of Earth, Marine and Environmental Sciences Oral Presentations Tuesday, December 9 8:30 - 11:50 145A The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) Mission: New Frontiers in Hydrology I & II Oral (H21G & H22G) Co-convened by Dr. Tamlin Pavelsky Professor 9:35 am 145A SWOT Water Surface Elevation Accuracy in Herbaceous & Shrub-dominated Wetlands of Florida’s Everglades (H21G-05) Solomon Kica Graduate Student 14:10 - 15:40 145A The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) Mission: New Frontiers in Hydrology III Oral (H23V) Co-convened by Dr. Tamlin Pavelsky Professor