Environmental, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences at UMass Lowell

UML’s own Shiri Spear was just named Chief Meteorologist for Fox Affiliate, Boston 25 News. Shiri received her MS in Atmospheric Science from UMass Lowell in 2007 and recently taught “Communication in the Earth Sciences”, a course she designed herself which taught students the importance of clear science communication. We in the department of Environmental, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences are so proud of Shiri and know she will be fantastic in this new role.

Shiri Spear, Boston 25 News - Boston 25 News Shiri Spear joined WFXT in November 2012 as the Boston 25 Morning News meteorologist. She is a native New Englander, raised in Hollis, NH. Shiri is no stranger to the challenges of forecasting New England weather. She has forecasted and reported on everything from Nor'easters to ice storms to spring...

"I just love what I do!" and it shows. A professor emeritus in the Department of Environmental, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Robert Gamache was recently recognized as being in the top 0.05% of scholars worldwide by ScholarGPS.

Read more: https://www.uml.edu/news/stories/2024/robert-gamache-highly-ranked-scholar.aspx

Ericka Boudreau chaired a session at the GSA Cordillera section meeting in Spokane, WA. There, she presented on zircon chemistry used as a proxy for crustal conditions (temperature, pressure, redox, depth, etc.) The session she chaired covered advances in geoscience and geoscience education.

EEAS graduated a record 35 students this year! Here are just a few of them. Congratulations to all!!!

EEAS Geology Professors Dr. Kate Swanger, Dr. Rich Gaschnig, and Dr. Nelson Eby discuss their research in the latest edition of "Elements".

The World in a Grain of Sand | Elements of Science Magazine | Elements of Science | Kennedy College of Sciences Geoscientists Study Clues to Understand How the Earth Evolved Assoc. Prof. Kate Swanger looks inside an X-ray diffractometer, which analyzes the structure of crystals. 04/16/2024 By Katharine Webster The mysteries of Earth’s evolution are locked inside rocks, from volcanic magma to frozen sediment...

Dr. Joy Winbourne hosted the grand opening of the UML food forest last Friday. She plans to study the quantification of ecosystem services to validate a novel framework that quantifies full life cycle benefits and costs for the creation and maintenance of a food forest compared to a conventional lawn. Of course, first, they need to plant the forest!

Congratulations to our 2024 Student Research Symposium EEAS student presenters, Billy Lefebvre, Jamie-Lyn Cavallon, and Madelaine Griesel! Well done!

Final day at the Northeast Section meeting. Graduate students Madalaine Griesel, Asim Roy, and Anthony Madonna present posters on their research. Grad students Mika Bigin and Evan Paige show their support. We’ve had excellent representation with Dr. Heiss leading a session on Monday morning and Dr. Eby presenting yesterday afternoon. We also enjoyed visits from alum Rick Butts, Will Sommer, and Erika Amir-Lin. Our table was one of the best with plenty of visits and questions about our programs. Special thanks to Ericka Boudreau and Eliza for all their help!

First official day of the NE Section meeting. Kimberly Lambert is presenting a poster about the work she did with Kate Swanger. “Constraining bedrock source regions of surficial deposits in the McMurdo dry valleys, Antarctica. Charl du Toit and Ericka Boudreau at the UML table, and potential students combing through the Earth-themed stickers!