People
Dr. Melissa Berke (she/her)
I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences at the University of Notre Dame. Prior to my time at Notre Dame, I was a postdoctoral researcher in the Global Change and Sustainability Center at the University of Utah. I earned my PhD from the University of Minnesota at the Large Lakes Observatory, my master’s degree from the University of California Riverside, and my bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College. I am broadly interested in understanding paleoclimate and paleoenvironmental change, using isotopic and organic geochemical proxies from lacustrine and marine sediments over a wide range of timescales and locations, but am particularly captivated by the tropical water cycle and associated landscape variability. In my free time, I love to travel, hike/backpack, and enjoy live music.
Dr. Ross Williams
Dr. Ross Williams is a Laboratory Manager Scientist in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences. He joined Notre Dame in the Spring of 2022 after spending five years at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center as a postdoc in the Solar System Exploration Division. There, he worked primarily on the Mars Curiosity Rover's Sample Analysis at Mars instrument (SAM) preparing experiments and analyzing mass spectrometry results in the search for evidence of Martian organic processes. Prior to that, he received his Ph.D in Geochemistry from Massachusetts Institute of Technology reconstructing past terrestrial environmental conditions in extreme climates using a biomarker approach, When not in a lab, he is an avid photographer and enjoys exploring the outdoors.
Graduate Students
Mirko Uy
Mirko is a PhD student from the Philippines. Being surrounded by the sea, he was always very interested in the marine realm ever since childhood. He finished his undergraduate and masters degrees at the University of the Philippines studying geology. He studied the biostratigraphy and past productivity of an International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) site in the South China Sea using microscopic calcareous nannofossils for his masters. His interests outside research are cooking, pottery, and beekeeping.
Kayla Hollister
Kayla is a PhD student born and raised in Buffalo, NY. She received her B.S. and M.S. in Geological Sciences from the University at Buffalo. As an undergrad, Kayla became fascinated by Arctic climate change, and used this as motivation to pursue a senior thesis, where she reconstructed Holocene precipitation seasonality on western Greenland using leaf wax hydrogen isotopes. During her Masters, Kayla’s focus shifted towards understanding the preservation of modern aquatic and terrestrial leaf waxes in lake sediments on southern Baffin Island. When she’s not working on cool science stuff, Kayla enjoys hiking through the woods, reading, listening to music, and talking about anything Buffalo-related.
Group alumni
Graduate Students
Beatriz Alejandra Aguilar Enriquez (M.S. 2023, Ph.D. candidate at University of South Florida)
Dr. Alejandra Cartagena Sierra (Ph.D. 2023, Engineer at Elementar Americas)
Dr. Audrey Taylor (Ph.D. 2022, Program Analyst at Bureau of Ocean Energy Management)
Dr. Keith O’Connor (Ph.D. 2020, Senior Scientist in Reactor Plant Chemistry, Nuclear Naval Lab)
Darren Cheah (M.S. 2016, Ph.D. candidate at Curtin University)
Undergraduate Students
Teresa Elfrink (Dept. of CEEES), 2024 - present
Josie Humbert (Dept. of CEEES), 2022 - present
Caroline Collins (Dept. of BIOS), 2022-2023
Megan Staley (Dept. of CEEES), 2021 - 2023
Erin Ludwig (Dept. of CEEES), 2020-2021
Sydney Brady (Dept. of BIOS), 2019-2020
Kyle Walker (Dept. of BIOS), 2019-2020
John Keenan (Dept. of CEEES), 2019
Floyd Nichols (REU student), Summer 2018
Andrew Copp (Dept. of CEEES), 2018
Joshua Horn (Dept. of BIOS), 2017-2019
Ellison Rooney (Science Business), 2017-2019
Katherine Conese (Dept. of CEEES), 2017-2018
Greg Campion (Dept. of CEEES), Summer 2017
Emily Najacht (St. Mary’s/Dept. of CEEES), 2016-2017
Meagan Hughes (Dept. of BIOS), 2015-2017
Adrienne Bruggeman (St. Mary’s/Dept. of CEEES), 2015-2018
Teresa Muldoon (Dept. of CEEES), 2014-2016
Michael Tillema (Dept. of CEEES), 2014-2016
Christa Costello (St. Mary’s/Dept. of CEEES), 2014-2016
Katelyn Frierott (Dept. of CEEES), 2014
Postdoctoral Researchers
Dr. Rosemary Bush (2014-2015, now Weinberg College Adviser/Assistant Professor of Instruction at Northwestern University)