Near-Peer Mentors
Near-peer mentors in the GEOPAths GO Jamaica program are Jamaican and US graduate students who are conducting their research in Jamaica (or recent graduates who conducted research with the team). They are still students, so they understand the stresses of student life and can sometimes be more approachable mentors to new researchers!
Claire Williams
Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
The University of Texas at Austin
Claire Williams is a PhD student at the Jackson School of Geosciences. She has a B.S. in Geology and in Integrative Biology and a minor in Chemistry from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She is a biologist turned paleobiologist interested in conservation paleobiology. Claire is currently studying coral reefs in the Caribbean working with the East Portland Special Fishery Conservation Area in Jamaica as well as on Pleistocene fossil reefs in the same area. She is also using ecological niche modeling in reefs from the Last Glacial Maximum to the future to try and determine how niche is changing over time and where suitable habitat will be for these reefs in the future. Besides research, she is interested in outreach, teaching, and reforestation.
Caitlin Currie
Undergraduate researcher, Biology
The University of Texas at Austin
Caitlin is a 4th year undergraduate Biology student in the College of Natural Sciences. With expertise in education and the development of curriculum, she has worked closely with peers to alter educational board games to be more regionally attuned to Jamaican communities. She began at UT Austin with research in the biochemistry field, but has slowly shifted focus into geosciences, highlighting water sampling. She collected water samples at various sites along Portland’s Rio Grande river and analyzed the nutrient levels. Outside of the field, she’s currently seeking certification to teach high school life sciences through the university’s UTeach program and expresses continuing interest in STEM Education.
Pearl P. Bergan
Master of Philosophy in Chemistry
The University of the West Indies
After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in general chemistry from The University of the West Indies, Jamaica, Pearl went on to pursue an Environmental Chemistry MPhil researcher in the Department of Chemistry at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica from 2021. My current research project investigates the impact of organic pollution from surface and groundwater flows on the marine waters of Kingston Harbor. I am currently an IAEA Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow as of October 2022 where I use isotope hydrology to conduct my current research project. I currently provide collaborative assistance alongside my supervisor to graduate students from the University of Texas, where we have assisted with water quality data in projects that looked at the importance of nutrient uptake by mangrove forests and Community Abundance and Environmental Monitoring to Support Coral Reef Management in areas such as Portland and Montego Bay.
Jorjan Dolphy
M.Phil Candidate, Department of Geology and Geography
The University of the West Indies
Jorjan Dolphy is an M.Phil candidate at the University of the West Indies, where her research underscores the lack of geodiversity and geoheritage discourse across Jamaica and the wider Caribbean. Through her B.Sc in Geology from the University of the West Indies, she has investigated the discipline as a tool for natural conservation, heritage nomination, awareness building, and community resilience. Her current research involves mapping and identifying geodiversity and geoheritage correspondingly across eastern Jamaica by way of GIS and local community engagement. She contends that evaluation and subsequent conservation of geology through a ‘geoscientific lens’ needs to be reinforced by community engagement and collective sensitization towards the geological landscape. Jorjan recognises the role of community in identifying geoheritage, as such, she aims to understand communities’ relationship with the geological environment and how sense of place frameworks can be utilized as a means for geoheritage nomination and geoconservation.
Matthew Rahamut
Ph.D. student, Department of Geography and Geology
The University of the West Indies
Matthew Rahamut is a graduate student at the Department of Geography and Geology at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus. His main areas of interest include coral reef accretion processes and the history of Caribbean reefs. Matthew’s research project studies the taphonomy and accretion history of Late Pleistocene coral reefs along the southwestern, southeastern, and north-central coastlines of Jamaica.