Potential Projects

and

Past & Current MS Theses

Help Wanted: Projects Looking for Graduate Students

Recreating the Sierra Nevada's original landscape

Bits and pieces of the southern Sierra Nevada's original landscape still remain in some parts of the range. For this project, you will scour Google Earth imagery and high-resolution digital maps for these remnants and, using GIS, interpolate them to recreate what the landscape looked like millions of years ago.

California Beaches

In this project, you will investigate the cycle of life, death, and rebirth of beaches along California's coastline. This a particularly important topic considering the impact that sea level rise may have in shrinking our beaches.

Fire and Erosion

For this project, you will investigate how the burning of vegetation creates a water-repellent layer on the soil that dramatically increases surface runoff, leading to floods and debris flows.

Fault Damage and Erosion

For this project, you will explore how faults fracture bedrock and make it more erodible.

Merced Fan

The history of the creation of Yosemite Valley is contained within the alluvial fan deposited by the Merced River. In this project, you will investigate the deposits and formation of the Merced fan.

Coastal Erosion

In this project, you will develop automated procedures for identifying coastal features. This work will require someone with strong technical skills in GIS or the ability to learn them quickly.

Choose your own adventure

My graduate students are free to work on anything they want, including projects that they come up with themselves. If you have an idea that you'd like to explore, let's chat!

Current and Past MS Thesis Projects

Theses from 2010 - present can be downloaded here. * = published in peer-reviewed journal

Aly Oamil In progress Developing a new technique for mapping coastal cliffs

Ethan Hasenauer In progress Coastal creek's response to dam removal

Jon Lauffer In progress Reconstructing the Miocene Sierran volcanic edifice

Suzy Brookshire In progress Analyzing beaver dam analogs in the restoration of a Sierran meadow

Max Morrison In progress The morphology of glacial cirques in the Sierra Nevada

Jessica Williamson In progress Fluvial response to the removal of a small dam in a steep landscape

Ian Severais In progress Understanding the controls on rockfalls in the Sierra Nevada

Maddy Doyle 2024 The spatial distribution of aggradation following dam removal

Thomas Mykytyn 2022 Distribution of Hg-laden sediment in the Central Valley

Stephanie Meursing 2022 Chemical and mineralogical analysis of hydraulic-mining debris

Alex Hutcherson 2018 Structural controls on Yosemite's topography

Christina Tipp 2017 *Reconstruction of the auriferous gravel deposits in the Sierras

Tyler Nakamura 2017 *Distribution of hydraulic mining sediment on the Yuba Fan

Paul Zimmer 2016 *Glacial modification of valleys in the Sierra Nevada (awarded SJSU Outstanding Thesis)

Sam Emerson 2016 The role of bed shear stress in sediment sorting patterns

Evan Enriquez 2016 Debris flow fans in Yosemite National Park

Brittany Johnson 2015 Lithological controls on knickpoint formation in Sierra Nevada bedrock channels

Ka'ai Jensen 2014 The role of lithology in glacial valley cross-sectional shape

Alan Kuoch 2014 Examination of multi-particle transport as a function of volume

Lauren Short 2014 *The role of large woody debris in sediment pulse dispersion

Ryan Wood 2013 Transient hillslope response to the passage of an incision wave

Tania Treiss 2011 A multi-scale evaluation of landscape relief

Morgan Mendoza 2010 *Modeling particle transport distance as a function of slope

Kristin Burns 2007 *The effect of vegetative ash on the viscosity of hillslope runoff

Shawn Naylor 2006 *Glacial vs non-glacial erosion in the Bitterroot Mountains

Andy Bookter 2006 *The chemical properties of vegetative ash

Dan Hoffman 2005 *River response to input of sediment from multiple debris flows