UT Jackson School of Geosciences

Super El Niño could bring a wetter Texas winter as weather extremes intensify With a Super El Niño brewing in the atmosphere, there's concern about what the weather pattern means for the U.S. and the Southwest. Texas is already experiencing another summer of weather extremes: destructive rainfall and flooding followed by dangerous heat, with Tropical Storm Bertha now moving ...

Congratulations to our four 2026 Golden Hammer awardees!

A longtime tradition of the Jackson School, the Golden Hammer recognizes an individual from each one of our GEO 660 field camps who shows field prowess while also being a team player.

This year’s awardees are: Chase Hunter (GEO 660A1), Luciana Sanchez-Bustamante (GEO 660A2), Zephyr Yellman (GEO 660B1) and Abby McAlanis (GEO 660B2).

Each person received an Estwing rock pick hammer (in the usual steel) with a leather-wrapped handle in honor of their accomplishments. ⛏️

Four Students Receive Golden Hammer Awards in Recognition of Field Geology Prowess 2026 Golden Hammer winners. Clockwise from top right: Luciana Sanchez-Bustamante; Zephyr Yellman (on right) receiving Golden Hammer award from Assistant…

Take a break from the Texas heat and pretend you're an honors student in Alaska for a moment ❄️.

The Undergraduate Honors Research Program is a two-year opportunity for Jackson School students to conduct their own research, write and present a thesis, build relationships with faculty members and graduate students, and take a fully funded trip during the spring semester.

Learn more about it on our website! https://www.jsg.utexas.edu/academics/undergraduate/honors-program/

Congratulations to Assistant Professor Matt Malkowski, who has won the AAPG Foundation's Inspirational Geoscience Educator Award!

This award recognizes university and college educators who demonstrate exceptional creativity, excellence, and dedication in inspiring the next generation of geoscientists.

“I’m deeply honored to receive the 2026 Inspirational Geoscience Educator Award from the AAPG Foundation,” Malkowski said. “Teaching has always been a part of this career I find immensely rewarding, whether that’s watching a student discover new concepts in the field or seeing former mentees go on to build their own careers in geoscience."

Read more about the award here: https://www.jsg.utexas.edu/news/2026/07/matt-malkowski-wins-aapg-foundations-inspirational-geoscience-educator-award/

📷: Malkowski, gesturing in the foreground, teaches students in the field near the Guadalupe Mountains for the GEO 416S “Earth and Planetary Processes Through Time” class in October 2024.

Last semester, Geeta Persad, an assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, created a unique way for climate system science students to get the visceral, hands-on experience of a field trip while studying complex global earth system model data on supercomputers — a visit to the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC)!

For the education component of her National Science Foundation CAREER Award, Persad developed a pilot earth system modeling field trip at TACC. Eleven undergraduate students from her GEO 416W “Climate, Water, and the Environment” class came out to TACC for the day to build their own visualization targeting a specific scientific question concerning extreme rainfall.

“The goal was to give the students a hands-on way of understanding how dimensions like climate model uncertainty, internal climate variability, climate metric choice, and future emissions scenario affect the trajectory of extreme rainfall events worldwide,” Persad said.

A classic component of a geosciences education is fieldwork. Time spent in the field helps classroom concepts take on a tangible reality, as students see with their own eyes the geological processes that shape the world. But for climate students, this kind of field experience isn’t really possible. Climate processes tend to take place on huge scales, often at varying levels in the atmosphere.

This computational field trip helped climate science students see data in a new light and learn first-hand about the computational processes that turn complicated climatic processes into visualizations.

The workflow for this experience was built by Persad, the department’s computational geoscientist Cameron Cummins, the TACC visualization staff and software developers at Los Alamos National Lab.

📷: Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC)

Help scientists at the Jackson School's Gulf Coast Carbon Center shrink a half-mile of Earth into a tabletop — and put the science of carbon storage directly into the hands of students and the public.

Scientists at the GCCC are raising funds to build a mini sand tank kit that they can take on the road to show how carbon storage works and why it matters.

Gulf Coast Carbon Center's Sand Tank Lab See what happens to CO2 a half-mile underground — help us bring sand tank science to classrooms!

Congratulations to Associate Professor Daniella Rempe, who has been named the next associate dean for research at the Jackson School of Geosciences!

Rempe is a Jackson School alumna (B.S. '07) and has been a faculty member in the school's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences since 2016. She is a hydrologist whose research focuses on the processes that shape water resources and their responses to disturbances like drought and wildfire.

She will begin the associate dean for research role on Aug. 1. Rempe will be replacing outgoing Associate Dean for Research Michael Young, who will return to conducting research at the Bureau of Economic Geology.

“We’re lucky to have such great people representing the Jackson School,” said Dean Danny Stockli. “I am very grateful to Michael and I am confident that Daniella is the perfect person to take the reins and help lead us to even greater heights."

Jackson School Names New Associate Dean for Research Associate Professor Daniella Rempe Associate Professor Daniella Rempe has been named the next associate dean for research at the Jackson…

Research scientist Edward Vizy and Professor Kerry Cook used climate models created by students in GEO 347G “Climate System Modeling” to study the climatological factors behind the July 4 storm that struck the Texas Hill Country last year, leading to devastating and deadly flooding.

They found that rainfall was actually suppressed and could have been up to 8% higher had sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico been at the 40-year average for that week.

The results were published in Geophysical Research Letters and could help improve forecasts of future storms.

Jackson School Class Helped Model July 4 Storm and Found That Rainfall was Slightly Suppressed Elizabeth Chapa presents her final project to the GEO 347G class in December 2025. Her instructor, Research Scientist Edward Vizy,…