Updates
May 2024
Today we said farewell to undergrad student Scott who helped prepare some of the Junin MIS 15 samples (which were included in my dissertation) and samples from other interglacial periods at Junin. Scott will be starting a Master's program at Univeristy of Washington in the fall. Wishing you luck in all of your future endeavors, Scott!!
Scott, Sarah, and Junin samples!
May 2024
May has started off as a memorable month! I was proud to join other graduates of the Class of 2024 as we celebrated all of our achievements!
This month, I also start a new role as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Michigan Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences!
Graduation at the Big House, May 4.
Rackham Graduation. Left to right, Dr. Allison Curley, Dr. Fabian Hardy, Dr. Sarah Katz, and Dr. Zack Quirk.
April 2024
My second dissertation chapter, "Holocene temperature and water stress in the Peruvian Andes: insights from lake carbonate clumped and triple oxygen isotopes" has been accepted for publication at Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology!
DOI: 10.1029/2023PA004827
March 2024
March has been such an exciting month on a number of fronts!
First, I'm so happy to announce that I've officially completed all of my doctoral degree requirements and I am officially Dr. Katz! 🥳 Stay tuned for commencement photos in early May!
Additionally, I received the reviewer comments on my second dissertation chapter (submitted to Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology) which were very positive! I was particularly flattered that one reviewer remarked "The manuscript is well-written, provides a detailed overview of the state-of-the-art, well-illustrated results, a profound discussion and clearly highlights the key messages of this work." My revisions have been submitted and I am keeping my fingers crossed for good news back soon!
Feb. 2024
The new year has certainly started off with a busy, but exciting couple of weeks! After submitting my dissertation to my committee on Feb. 8, I am now turning my attention to my dissertation defense talk. This event is open to the public and I invite you to join me on February 23rd to learn about my PhD research!
Dec. 2023
I am extremely excited to announce that my second dissertation chapter, "Holocene temperature and water stress in the Peruvian Andes: insights from lake carbonate clumped and triple oxygen isotopes" was submitted to AGU Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology on Dec 9th. 🥳
Nov. 2023
My journey at Michigan is nearing its end! This month, I scheduled my PhD defense for Friday February 23, 2024 at 9 AM (EST). The 1-hour public defense will be streamed live on Zoom, so check back here in early February for a link to attend virtually!
Oct. 2023
Pittsburgh, part 2
GSA Connects in Pittsburgh was a fantastic meeting for catching up with old friends, as well as meeting many colleagues and collaborators in person for the first time!
I presented my triple oxygen isotope data from the Lake Junín core for the MIS 15 interval. I received a lot of positive feedback after the talk and I am looking forward to continue working on this manuscript for publication. A recording of my talk is now available through the GSA Connects website. Abstract here
I was surprised to find that the Lake Junín core was featured as part of the CSD scavenger hunt in the exhibit hall and that my talk was featured!
Oct. 2023
Pittsburgh, part 1
As the leaves turned orange and red throughout northern Appalachia, I visited the University of Pittsburgh this month to meet with collaborators and sample Holocene cores collected from Lake Junin's depocenter during the 2015 CSD drilling expedition. We are looking forward to comparing our existing clumped and triple oxygen isotope data from the lake margin (core collected in 1996) to these new samples from the depocenter!
Home away from home
Set up to work in the core lab!
Junin Holocene archive cores
Sept. 2023
This month, I was honored to be invited back to Colgate University, my alma mater, as the first Cooper Lecture series speaker of the year. In addition to presenting my dissertation research, I was able to re-connect with many of my former professors, as well as new faculty and undergrad students. Following the talk, I met with Juniors and Seniors to discuss grad school, the application process, and academic research. Overall this trip was hugely successful (even moreso than I could have hoped!) and I look forward to visiting campus again soon!!
August 2023
Happy start of the semester from IsoPaleoLab!
Students are back on campus and the energy is high! Wishing everyone a great fall that is hopefully full of teaching successes, generation of new data, finishing old projects, and a fruitful conference season!
Back row (L to R): Ben Passey, Elena Lee, Julia Kelson, Anne Fetrow, Sarah Katz, Nick Ellis, Jungpyo Hong. Front row (L to R): Jada Langston, Kirsten Andrews, Naomi Levin, Million Mengesha, Georgia Oppenheim.
August 2023
I'm happy to announce that I'll be presenting my work on the MIS-15 interval from Lake Junin at the GSA Annual meeting in Pittsburgh this October.
Check out my oral presentation, Large swings in tropical water balance during a 'weak' interglacial (MIS 15) suggest a link to precession-induced monsoon variability on Tuesday October 17th at 10:15 AM in Room 334.
July-August 2023
Late summer has been a busy time in the lab! After finishing pretreatments for our new MIS-15 samples from Lake Junin, we have been working hard to get undergrad student, Scott, fully trained on our clumped instrument. Scott has also been helping to weigh out both the new samples and additional replicates from our initial MIS-15 sample set. The data are rolling in and we are looking forward to continuing our analytical streak in September with further triple oxygen isotope analyses!
June 2023
This month, we welcomed a new undergraduate student to the lab, Scott Katz (who has no relation to me). Scott will be working on sediment treatments of the Lake Junin core from MIS intervals 5, 13, and 15, as we prepare for continued clumped and triple oxygen isotope characterization of Andean interglacials.
Welcome Scott!
March 2023 con't
See our department's award page here, which contains a short description of each award.
I am honored to have been nominated for and received two awards at our department's annual John and Ruth Dorr Awards Dinner!
I received both the Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award and the inaugural Outstanding Graduate Student Service Award.
I am so thankful to the amazing faculty and co-GSIs who I've worked with over the last five years, and of course, all of the amazing UM students I've been fortunate to teach as a GSI. I'm also thankful for the many other groups and programs I have been a part of during my time at Michigan, including Earth Camp, URGE, and MGU (our annual collegiate research symposium).
March 2023
This month, I cohosted an information session on applying to the GSA Lowell Field Camp Scholarship for undergrad students who will be attending Camp Davis this summer! Field gear is expensive and I've seen firsthand as a Camp Davis Graduate Student Instructor how the financial burden can be a major obstacle for students at field camp. Too often, this burden is greatest for our non-traditional students and students from historically underrepresented groups, perpetuating inequities in fieldwork. In our info session, we introduced students to the Lowell application requirements, discussed how to request recommendation letters, and discussed how to draft a cover letter.
While preparing for the information session, we realized the GSA membership requirement ($45 annual fee for students) would likely be a barrier to some of our students. Working with our department and field director, we were able to find two funding solutions for students: the GSA membership fee waiver program and department funding.
April 2023 update: I am THRILLED that one of our workshop participants was informed that she received a 2023 Lowell Scholarship. She is such a deserving candidate for this award and the scholarship will go a long way in helping her prepare financially for field camp! 🥳 🌎 🎊
February 2023 con't
I am excited to share that I was selected as a Rackham Predoctoral Fellow for the 2023-24 academic year! I am thrilled to receive a full year of support from Rackham Graduate School while I complete my dissertation!
In April 2023, I attended the Rackham Predoctoral Fellow Ceremony which included wonderful remarks from Rackham Dean, Mike Solomon, and alumnus remarks by Dr. Elizabeth Johhnson. See Rackham's statement on the 2023-24 Fellow cohort here and my dissertation summary here.
February 2023
This month, I am excited to welcome sophomore Matthew Salinas to the Lake Junín project! Matthew got his start in the IsoPaleoLab (IPL) as a freshman working on soil waters and soil carbonates with Naomi and Julia Kelson. Now, Matthew will be working with me as I start to develop the temperature and water stress story at Lake Junín during the "penultimate" interglacial (MIS-5; 130,000-80,000 years BP). This exciting interval is often cited as being potentially analogous to future climate conditions, particularly during MIS-5e, as global temperature ~1.5-2.0 *C warmer than the present day.
This month, Matthew has already started analyzing some of our samples on XRD to confirm the carbonate mineralogy of the sediment-- a very important piece of information! In March, we will begin processing the bulk sediment to prepare for upcoming clumped and triple oxygen isotope analysis in the spring!
Funding for this work comes from a Scott Turner Award for graduate student research, which I received in Fall 2022.
Jan. 2023
This month, I started a new Graduate Student Instructor position (GSI, equivalent to TA) for Earth Chemistry (Earth 131) with Drs. Rose Cory and Mark Robbins. Earth Chem teaches students chemistry fundamentals, with a particular focus on concepts that are critical for Earth Science majors. Unlike traditional Intro Chem classes, which are commonly viewed as 'weeder' courses, the goal of this class is for ALL students to achieve academic success while providing a strong foundation for students to succeed in upper-level Earth Science courses.
One of the cool things about this class is that students commonly enroll to meet science graduation requirements, so I have students from a big range of majors (art, neuro, undeclared) and different academic levels (freshmen, sophomores, juniors, transfer students, non-traditional students).
I have been really enjoying getting to know my students in discussion sections and office hours over the last few weeks!!
Dec. 2022
The typesetting for my first chapter: "Detecting hydrologic distinctions among Andean lakes using clumped and triple oxygen isotopes" is almost complete! See volume 602 of EPSL for the finalized paper or access it here:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2022.117927
Supplementary R scripts, including the isotope- enabled lake budget model, are posted on my GitHub. This code models the isotopic composition of evaporated lake water d17O, d18O, and d2H.
Data will be available at EarthChem ClumpDB (clumped data) and WaterIsotopes.org (hydrogen and triple oxygen water data)!
Nov. 2022
I was ecstatic to learn that my first dissertation chapter has been "accepted with minor revisions" to Earth and Planetary Science Letters! Be on the lookout for this paper near the end of 2022 or early 2023! In the meantime, check out the highlights of this work, below:
Highlights:
Expansion of lake water and carbonate ∆17O observations to humid systems
Carbonate ∆47 and ∆17O track lake water temperature and isotopic composition
∆17O can track the evaporative state of lakes (XE) in both humid and arid regions
Refined ∆17O-λlake relationship improves δ18Orucp estimates in humid systems
Even in the absence of humidity constraints, ∆17O data improve δ18Orucp estimates
Sept. 2022
In early fall, I accompanied Naomi and Jada on a pilot research trip back to the Biostation! The highlight of our trip was taking the pontoon boat out to Marl Bay on Douglas Lake and recovering carbonate sediment using a push corer.
This month, I also presented an overview of our hydrology module at a department seminar.
July 2022 (pt. 2)
This month, we welcomed Earth Camp to the UM BioStation in Pellston, MI!
We were excited to welcome 15 rising high school Juniors from the Detroit and Ypsilanti areas to the beautiful BioStation at the end of July!
For the past few months, I have been working on developing a hydrology module alongside my advisor, Naomi Levin, as part of her P2C2 NSF award (#2102843).
Some of the highlights of our three-day module included taking the students out on the BioStation pontoon and generating temperature, DO, and light intensity profiles in South Fishtail Bay (see image carousel). We also measured the surface expression of groundwater flow at the Carp Creek headwaters in the UMBS Gorge using digital flow meters.
These measurements informed our group discussions of lake hydrology, turnover, water balance, and groundwater flow.
We are already looking forward to returning to running this module again next summer!
A calm summer morning at the UM BioStation.
July 2022
Congratulations to my coauthor, Don Rodbell at Union College, on his new article "700,000 years of tropical Andean glaciation" out this week in Nature! Publication link: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04873-0
June 2022!
Ecosystem Science in Wyoming!
I am in Wyoming at UM's Camp Davis campus for the month of June as a Graduate Student Instructor! This is my second time as a GSI for this class and each year has been a blast! So far, we've covered the geology of the Teton range, water chemistry & quality, and are now moving on to soils and ecology! See the images to the right for some snapshots of our time in the field and for a soil hydrometer teaching document that I created!
The Tetons are a beautiful location to do place-based learning!
April 2022
Michigan Geophysical Union 18th Annual Symposium
This year I had the honor of serving as the MGU Organizing Committee co-chair. On Thursday April 7th, we welcomed over 50 student presenters from the Earth and CLaSP departments to the Michigan League to present original student research. We hosted morning and afternoon poster sessions, along with inaugural live, in person talk sessions. I was luck enough to give a talk on my Peru Holocene work in the afternoon!
March 2022
Accepted to the 2022 Preparing Future Faculty Cohort!
I was thrilled to receive news that I've been accepted to this year's Preparing Future Faculty program, sponsored by UM's Rackham Graduate School and the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT)! I am looking forward to learning about teaching pedagogy and inclusive teaching practices, and to prepare a course syllabus and teaching statement as part of this program! PFF begins in May 2022 and runs until early June.
