June 2015 Lab Members (from left): Hussein Sayani, Pamela Grothe, Macon Abernathy, Colin Stone, Lucas Everitt, Kim Cobb, Chris Bosma, Nicholas Hitt, Jessica Moerman, and Tianran Chen
October 2014 Lab Members (from left): Tianran Chen, Kim Cobb, Hussein Sayani, Colin Stone, Agraj Khare, Chris Bosma, Shellby Miller, Pamela Grothe, and Jessica Moerman
Fall 2012 Lab Members: Jessica Moerman, Jessica Conroy, Eleanor Middlemas, Pamela Grothe, Ariana Lewis, and Danja Mewes, (top row, from left):  Kim Cobb, Hussein Sayani
January 2012 Lab Members (from left):   Kim Cobb, Jessica Conroy, Jessica Moerman, Eleanor Middlemas, Elizabeth Wiggins, Stacy Carolin, and Hussein Sayani
2010 Cobb Lab Members (from left): Heather Crespo, Rebecca Kollmeyer, Krystle Stewart, Kim Cobb, Intan Suci Nurhati, Jessica Moerman, and Hussein Sayani
2008 Lab Members (from left): Kim Cobb, Laura Zaunbrecher, Julien Emile-Geay, Allison Graab, Jud Partin, Nitya Sharma, Intan Suci Nurhati, Hussein Sayani, and Matt Johnson (ex-lab member)
2006 Lab Members (from left): Jud Partin, Kim Cobb, Kim Brady, Intan Suci Nurhati, Matt Johnson, and Sara Harrold

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Cobb Lab Alumni


Jessica Moerman

Doctoral Student

Education
2015 Ph.D. Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology
2009 B.S. Geology and Chemistry, University of Tennessee-Chattanooga

Contact:
Email: jessica.moerman@eas.gatech.edu

Research Interests:
Despite advances in projections by global climate models, there is still much uncertainty about how future climate change will impact the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which impacts hundreds of millions of people worldwide. One of the reasons for this is that we only have 150 years of instrumental records of ENSO variability. With my work, I hope to decrease the uncertainty in how ENSO will respond to future climate change by extending the ENSO record to the past 2000 years using paleoclimate archives – specifically stalagmites from northern Borneo. Northern Borneo is an ideal place to investigate past ENSO behavior since modern precipitation amount in this area is (1) very sensitive to the ENSO cycle and (2) has a very weak seasonal cycle, which could obscure ENSO variability. Stalagmites contain a record of past hydrological changes in the oxygen isotopic chemistry of their calcite, making them a powerful tool to carry out these investigations.

The first part of my dissertation research focuses on better understanding the connection between oxygen isotopes, precipitation amount, and tropical climate variability by comparing multi-year records of the oxygen isotopic composition of modern rainfall and cave dripwater at our site to instrumental records of local and regional precipitation amount and ENSO indices. This research has helped us not only better constrain the relationship between oxygen isotopes and tropical hydrology but also better understand how the climate signal carried by rainfall oxygen isotopes is transformed during transit from cloud to calcite. This information is extremely valuable to the second part of my dissertation – reconstructing past tropical hydrological changes and paleo-ENSO over the past 2000 years from fast-growing northern Borneo stalagmites.

Bronwen Konecky

Postdoctoral Fellow

Currently
NSF-AGS Postdoctoral Research Fellow, CIRES, University of Colorado & Oregon State University
Education
2013 Ph.D. Geological Sciences, Brown University
2006 Sc.M. Geological Sciences, Brown University
2005 B.A. magna cum laude, Environmental Sciences,
Barnard College, Columbia University

View my CV

Contact:
Website: http://blkonecky.wordpress.com/
Email: bronwen.konecky@colorado.edu

Research Interests:
My research aims to illuminate past, present, and future environmental change in the tropics. I use tools of organic geochemistry, stable isotope geochemistry, and paleolimnology to reconstruct paleoenvironmental change in terrestrial systems on a hierarchy of timescales, from decadal to orbital. I complement these efforts with analysis of isotope-enabled GCM experiments to understand modern and past controls on precipitation, precipitation δD, and biosphere/atmosphere interactions, and to illuminate important processes in the tropical water cycle. I am in the process of expanding my research program to incorporate forward and process modeling of leaf waxes, analysis of water cycling in tropical forests, and synthesis of isotopic proxy data alongside isotope-enabled paleoclimate model simulations.


Jessica Conroy

Postdoctoral Fellow

Currently
Assistant Professor, University of Illinois

Education
2011 Ph.D. Department of Geosciences, The University of Arizona
2006 M.S. Department of Geosciences, The University of Arizona
2003 B.A. Department of Geology, The College of Wooster

View my CV

Contact:
webpage: http://ocean.eas.gatech.edu/jconroy/Site/Home.html
office: ES&T 2110
Phone: (404) 894 1633
Email: jconroy8@mail.gatech.edu

Research Interests:
-Tropical Pacific water isotopes
-Tropical Pacific paleoclimatology
-Tibet/Himalayas paleoclimatology and dust variability
-Spatial and temporal Asian monsoon variability
-Tropical Pacific teleconnections to Western North American hydroclimate


Stacy Carolin

Doctoral Student

Currently
Postdoc at University of Oxford, UK

Education
2008 B.S. Earth and Atmospheric Science, Georgia Institute of Technology

Download my CV

Contact:
webpage: www.stacycarolin.com
Office: ES&T 1162
Phone: (404) 894 9416
Email: stacy.carolin@gatech.edu

Research Interests:
- Speleothem records of tropical climate variability
- Abrupt climate change over the last glacial and penultimate interglacial periods

Projects:
1. Abrupt Climate Change during MIS 3: reconstructing hydrologic variability in the west Pacific warm pool over the last glacial period using 4 stalagmites from Borneo with overlapping oxygen isotopic records
2. Hydrologic variability during the penultimate interglacial: same as above, during the penultimate interglacial.



Eleanor Middlemas

Undergraduate Student

Currently
Graduate Research Assistant at Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, Miami

Education
Applied Mathematics major (4th year), Georgia Institute of Technology

Awards:
2012 President's Undergraduate Research Award (PURA) recipient

Contact:
Email: emiddlemas3@gatech.edu

Projects:
I am currently working on analyzing climate model output data. After learning analysis techniques, I will be using the SPEEDY model to adjust sea-level to observe climate effects.



Liz Wiggins

Undergraduate Student

Currently
Graduent Research Fellow at University of California, Irvine

Education
Earth & Atmospheric Science (4th year), Georgia Institute of Technology

Contact:
Email: ewiggins3@gatech.edu




Intan Suci Nurhati

Doctoral Student, 2005-2010

Currently
Postdoc at SMART's Center for Environmental Sensing and Modeling, working with Prof. Ed Boyle (MIT)

Education
Ph.D. (2010) Georgia Institute of Technology: Earth & Atmospheric Sciences, Certificate in Environmental Public Policy
B.A. (2005) Wesleyan University: Double-majored in Earth & Environmental Science (with Honors) and Economics

Awards:
John Bradshaw Award (2010)
Anne Clough Endowment Fund (2009)
PAGES ENSO Summer School Scholarship (2008)
Freeman Asian Scholarship (2001-2005)
Davenport Research Grant (2004)
Stearn Geology Field Camp Scholarship (2004)
Mellon Summer Research Fellowships (2002, 2003)

Contact:
Email: intan@smart.mit.edu
Website: http://inurhati.org/

Research Interests:
My main research interest is to understand tropical climate change over the recent centuries using nature's own archives such as corals and trees. Specifically, my researches aim to understand changes in regional rainfall variability. The majority of my past and ongoing researches revolve around corals, from various perspectives and to tackle different scientific and societal questions. I am also exploring the utility of tree isotopes as a potential land-based proxy of past rainfall variability in the tropics.



Julien Emile-Geay

Postdoctoral Fellow, 2008-2010

Currently
Assistant Professor, Department of Geosciences, University of Southern California

Education
Ph.D. Columbia University, New York, 2006
M.S. Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, 2001
B.S. Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, 1999


Contact:
Website: http://climdyn.usc.edu/People.html

Research Interests:
See Julien's Google Scholar profile
Tropical climate dynamics, low-frequency variability mathematical paleoclimatology, cyberpaleoclimatology, data/model integration



Jud Partin

Doctoral Student, 2006-2008

Currently
Research Associate, Institute for Geophysics, University of Texas, Austin

Education
Ph.D. Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008
M.A. Physical Chemistry, University of Southern California, 2000
B.S. Chemistry, The Citadel, 1997

Contact:
Email: jpartin@ig.utexas.edu
Office: 2.112, University of Texas, Austin
Website: http://www.ig.utexas.edu/people/staff/jpartin/

Research Interests:
My research focuses on understanding how the climate in the Western Pacific Warm Pool (WPWP) varied in the past. I use two paleoclimate proxies, or tools, to understand this problem: cave stalagmites and corals. Currently, I am focusing on reconstructing past hydrologic changes in the WPWP, both spatially and temporally, using stalagmites over the last 10,000 years.



More Former Students:

  • Danja Mewes (undergrad, currently applying for M.Sc. programs in Sustainable Technology)
  • Laura Zaunbrecher (Master's student, currently PhD student at GSU)
  • Nitya Sharma (technician, currently bioengineering MS student, GT)
  • Kim Brady (undergrad, currently PhD student at GT)
  • Kathleen Salome (undergrad, currently NSF Graduate Research Fellow at GT)
  • Alison Graab (undergrad)
  • Anna Williams (undergrad)
  • Jenni Williams (undergrad)
  • Sara Harrold (REU student, currently PhD student at UW)
  • Andrea Page (grad student)
  • Mindy Drinkuth (undergrad)
  • Matt Johnson (technician)