Last updated: March 2026
EDUCATION/PREPARATION
Postdoctoral Researcher Earth and Environmental Sciences, Syracuse University current
“Reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere Westerlies in the Western Pacific during the mid-Pliocene"
Ph.D. Earth and Climate Sciences, University of Maine 2025
“Interhemispheric shifts of westerly wind systems during deglaciation through the Holocene”
M.S. Earth and Climate Sciences, University of Maine 2020
“Variations in the Southern Hemisphere Westerlies over the past 23,000 years”
B.S. Environmental Geochemical Science minor in Political Science, State University of New York (SUNY) at New Paltz 2016
“Specific heat of household items for application of trombe wall interior heating”
PEER-REVIEW PUBLICATIONS
Referred Journal Articles
Hall, B., Putnam, A., Lowell, A., Denton, G., Russell, J., Soteres, R., Spoth-Ascencao, M.M., Miles, M., Thomas, S., Moreno, P., Schaefer, J., and Schwartz, R., 2026. Rapid thinning of the Cordillera Darwin icefield at the onset of Termination I. Geology
Azevedo-Schmidt, L., Landrum, M., Spoth, M.M., Brocchini N., Hamley K., Mereghetti, A., Tirrell, A.J., and Gill, J.L., 2025. Advancing terrestrial ecology by improving cross-temporal research and collaboration. Bioscience.
Spoth, M.M., Hall, B.L., Lowell, T.V., Diefendorf, A.F., Corcoran, M.C. and Brickle, P., 2023. Tracking the southern hemisphere westerlies during and since the last glacial maximum with multiproxy lake records from the Falkland Islands (52° S). Quaternary Science Reviews
Corcoran, M.C., Diefendorf, A.F., Lowell, T.V., Hall, B.L., Spoth, M.M., Schartman, A. and Brickle, P., 2022. Hydrogen and carbon isotope fractionation in modern plant wax n-alkanes from the Falkland Islands. Organic Geochemistry
Braddock, S., Hall, B.L., Johnson, J.S., Balco, G., Spoth, M.M., Whitehouse, P.L., Campbell, S., Goehring, B.M., Rood, D.H. and Woodward, J., 2022. Relative sea-level data preclude major late Holocene ice-mass change in Pine Island Bay. Nature Geoscience
Manuscripts in Submission
Spoth-Ascencao, M.M., Hall, B.L., Gill. J, Diefendorf, A.F., Lowell, T.V., Russell, J., Corcoran, M.C. and Brickle, P., in review. A 13,000-year record of the Southern Hemisphere Westerlies inferred from pollen and plant wax isotopes from the South Atlantic. Paleoceanography Paleoclimatology
Spoth-Ascencao, M.M., Diefendorf, A., Gill, J., Hall, B., Putnam, A., Corcoran, M. and Mensing, S., in review. Tracking Holocene Hydrology in High Sierra Nevada, California. Quaternary Science Reviews
RESEARCH AWARDS AND FUNDING
Chase Distinguished Research Assistantship $20,000 2024-2025
Geological Society of America Kerry Keltz Award $1,500 2024
Geological Society of America On To the Future (OTF) $1,000 2024
Dan and Betty Churchill Exploration Fund $8,000 2019, 2023, 2024
paleoCAMP Summer Session 2023
University of Maine Graduate Student Grant $4,300 2018, 2022-2025
Geological Society of America Graduate Student Research Grant $2,500 2022
Robert and Judith Sturgis Exploration Fund $2,300 2022
LacCore Visiting Graduate Student (CSD) $1,000 2019
EXPERIENCE
Field Researcher, University of Maine Spring 2019-2025
Sierra Nevada, California field team leader 2023; Patagonia, Chile 2023-2024; Baxter State Park, Maine 2020-2024; Falkland Islands 2019; Thwaites Glacier, Antarctica 2019
Research Assistant, University of Maine Summer 2020-2025
Sedimentary analysis, biomarker and pollen extraction and analysis, 10Be cosmogenic exposure dating, and analysis using python, R, and ArcGIS
Lead Teaching Assistant, University of Maine Fall 2019 – Spring 2020
Organized and set up laboratory materials for all sections of Introduction to Geology and Environmental Geology, aided in TA grading rubric compilation
Teaching Assistant, University of Maine Fall 2018 – Spring 2020
Lectured and graded laboratory sections of up to 20 students within the Earth and Climate Science Department in step with lectures, held office hour reviews
RESEARCH PROJECTS
Deglaciation vegetative carbon drawdown potential reconstruction with novel
Reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere Westerlies in the Western Pacific during the mid-Pliocene 2025-present
Research project focused on mid-Pliocene with IODP sediment cores from the Sea of Japan (East Sea) to reconstruct migrations of the Northern Hemisphere Westerlies in the western Pacific Ocean with sedimentological analysis including biomarker isotopes
Interhemispheric shifts of westerly wind systems during deglaciation through the Holocene 2020-2025
PhD dissertation project to reconstruct the position of the westerly wind systems and their effect on global climate change since the last glacial maximum. Field sites are in the Sierra Nevada, California; Mt. Usborne, Falkland Islands; and Cordillera Darwin, Chile. Methods include plant biomarker isotopes, pollen, charcoal, and x-ray fluorescence analysis, glacial geomorphologic mapping, and cosmogenic isotope dating.
Variations in the Southern Hemisphere Westerlies over the past 23,000 years 2018-2020
Master's thesis project used sediment analysis and plant wax isotopes to reconstruct the position of the southern westerlies in the Falkland Islands of the South Atlantic over the last 23,000 years
Specific heat of household items for application of trombe wall interior heating 2016
Bachelor of science thesis project on the utility of reused items for passive heating focused on measuring heat capacity of items at the New Paltz Recycling, such as take-out food containers, fabrics, and industrial materials
PRESENTATIONS
American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, Presenter 2022, 2025
Geological Society of America Connects, Presenter, 2024
Paleoecology, Invited Talk, University of Maine 2024
Paleoclimate Methods, Invited Talk, College of the Atlantic, Bar Harbor, Maine 2024
SouthSphere, Invited Talk, University of Bergen, Norway 2023
International Union for Quaternary Research Congress, Poster, 2023
Borns Symposium, Presenter, Climate Change Institute, Maine 2020-2025
Comer Meeting, Poster, Comer Foundation 2021
American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, Poster, 2019
Borns Symposium, Poster, Climate Change Institute, Maine 2019
PUBLIC OUTREACH
Climate Research Lab Tours 2024
Demonstration of the daily laboratory experience and its application to climate change research at the University of Maine
Antarctica Week 2019 and 2022
Presented on the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration to elementary-middle school classrooms nationwide about scientific research
Cornell Cooperative Extension at UMaine Follow a Researcher (FAR) 2019- 2021
Created blog pieces from ongoing research to engage with classrooms, filmed short virtual field trips using a GoPro360, and made classroom visits