Events

Master's Saturday

Session 1: Sediment Deposition and Tectonics from Multiple Perspectives

Session Chair: Rebecca Gao and George Segee-Wright

Session 2: Modeling in Many Forms

Session Chair: Eric Hiatt and William Nguyen

Session 3: The Impacts of Carbon

Session Chair: Cameron deFabry and Shawn Fullmer

UTIG Discussion Hour: Wei Wei, UTIG (PhD Talk)

Speaker: Wei Wei, Graduate Research Assistant, UTIG

Title: Bathymetric and subglacial hydrological context for the basal melting of Antarctic ice shelves

LEO Seminar Series: Kiara Gomez and Estephania Salgado-Jauregui

The purpose of LEO is to create a more inclusive and educated community within the JSG by sharing and listening to each other’s stories. Speakers will interview each other and talk about why they are involved in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts and the heart behind their work. By learning more about why individuals are involved in DEI, we will broaden our understanding of the impacts the JSG is making on students, faculty, staff, and greater society. Taking initiative to get to know each other, ask questions, and Listen to Each Other is a skill that will propel us further to be leaders in the geosciences.

Nathalie Voisin, Ph.D. - University of Washington

Nathalie Voisin, Ph.D.

Chief Scientist, Earth System Predictability Group, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Seattle, WA  Associate Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, University of Washington, Seattle, WA

Advances and Gaps in the Integration of Hydrologic Sciences in Power System Studies

Efficient and reliable operation of power grids requires managing a balance between energy production and electricity demand. The U.S. relies heavily on fresh surface water-dependent electricity generation, using water as fuel for hydropower and coolant for water dependent thermo-electric plants. There are however large disparities in the generation mix and overall power grid operations across the three continental U.S. power grids. Focusing on the Western U.S. interconnect, we demonstrated the sensitivity of contemporary grid operations to inter-annual variations in regional water availability. Leveraging the water-energy modeling framework, we then evaluated the sensitivity of the contemporary power grid to water availability compounded with changes in natural gas price, and the sensitivity to future water availability and its propagation onto regional market dynamics. Acknowledging that long term energy planning is driven by a variety of factors, we extended the approach to integrate future water availability in long term resources adequacy and reliability studies using both capacity expansion and production cost models over the Western U.S. interconnect. I will present those scientific advances along with ongoing research including the integration of hydrometeorological science for both load and generation. I will discuss regional strategies for the modeling integration and I will address modeling gaps, which range from diversity in production cost models, representation of water-sensitive operations, and the role of markets and agents of decision making.

UT Paleontology Seminar: Dr. Melissa Kemp

Dr. Melissa Kemp (Integrative Biology)

Research Interests: Conservation paleobiology, Evolutionary ecology, Island biogeography, Ancient DNA

DeFord Lecture: Dawn Wright

52 Million Points and Counting: A New Stratification Approach for Mapping and Modeling the Ocean

About Dr. Dawn Wright (ESRI)

Chief Scientist of Esri; Seafloor mapping and tectonics, ocean conservation, environmental informatics, and ethics in information technology.

DeFord Lecture Series
Since the 1940’s, the DeFord (Technical Sessions) lecture series, initially the official venue for disseminating EPS graduate student research, is a forum for lectures by distinguished visitors and members of our community. This is made possible through a series of endowments.

Dr. Dara Entekhabi - MIT

Habitability Seminar: Sonia Tikoo-Schantz, Stanford University

A seminar from the Center for Planetary Systems Habitability

Title: Lunar Magnetism

Speaker: Sonia Tikoo-Schantz, Assistant Professor, Department of Geophysics, Stanford University

https://habitability.utexas.edu/events/

Dr. Jacob Covault - Bureau, QCL Consortium

Hot Science At Home "I Spy the Eye of the Aye-Aye"

What can an Aye-Aye teach us about human vision? Chris Kirk explains how his research related to these intense-looking and enigmatic primates helps us understand human vision.

The event will be streamed online through YouTube and Facebook and will include a Q&A with Dr. Kirk.

For additional information about other events, please visit www.hotsciencecooltalks.org.

Graduation