Office of Polar Programs postdoctoral awardees

Award #: 2317681
Bacteria are abundant and active in nearly all components of the polar oceans, playing key roles in the food web, nutrient cycling, and ecological function. This research will employ recent genomic field observations and machine learning techniques to improve the representation of bacterial diversity in numerical models, allowing us to better predict the impact of specific microbes on ecological processes, such as carbon cycling, in the Arctic Ocean.

Emelia Chamberlain is a microbial ecologist and oceanographer who studies the microscopic life that thrives at the polar extremes of our planet. Her post-doctoral research will employ recent genomic field observations and machine learning techniques to improve the representation of bacterial diversity in numerical models, allowing us to better predict the impact of specific microbes on ecological processes, such as carbon cycling, in the Arctic Ocean.

Award #: 2317995
Rachel Herman researches Antarctic penguins and how they respond to climate change using a combination of population genetics and ecological modeling. She is currently investigating the presence of epigenetic variation among gentoo penguins (Pygoscelis papua) on the Western Antarctic Peninsula, and whether this provides phenotypic resiliency to novel environments, allowing them to expand their range further south.

Award #: 2317927
Benjamin Hills studies the fluid behavior of glacier ice. He primarily uses ice-penetrating radar as a tool to decipher past and present flow as well as to infer the solid and fluid properties of glaciers and ice sheets.

Award #: 2318348
Annika Horlings is a glaciologist interested in near-surface processes that are important in estimating mass loss or gain of alpine glaciers and ice sheets. This project will assess properties of and meltwater flow through the firn (i.e., material through which snow densifies into glacier ice) of Alaska’s Juneau Icefield and will improve our understanding of Alaskan glaciers’ influence on sea-level rise, regional water resources, and downstream ecology.

Award #: 2317998
The Southern Ocean mediates global climate through carbon cycling. While the physical processes involved are relatively well understood, the biological processes controlling carbon cycling are not well constrained. Hannah Joy-Warren’s work seeks to quantify the roles of different phytoplankton taxa in carbon cycling in the Southern Ocean.

Award #: 2317997
Molly Keogh studies the movement of water and sediment in coastal environments. By analyzing radioisotopes in Arctic and Antarctic sediment cores, this research will help us understand how climate change is impacting patterns of sediment erosion and deposition in polar environments.

Award #: 2317931
Samuel Mark is interested in climate and environmental changes which take place over long timescales. His current research involves tracing past episodes of permafrost thaw which took place during the Earth’s emergence from the last Ice Age.

Award #: 2317664
Laura Moore will study the effects of diverse iron-binding molecules on the fate and supply of dissolved iron in the Southern Ocean. Shen then will further explore the potential for these molecules to govern the bioavailability of scarce iron resources in the local microbial community.

Award #: 2317994
Substorms are a type of space weather event that occur daily and can lead to impacts on technology such as telecommunications satellites, and in order to study them we rely on ground-based measurements; however, due to limited ground coverage in the Southern Hemisphere, the majority of research into substorms relies solely on Northern Hemisphere data. The purpose of this research is to investigate an alternative way to identify and research substorms using a related phenomenon called Pi1B waves, and to then determine if measurements of Pi1B waves could be used as a suitable proxy for identifying substorms in Southern Hemisphere data.

Award #: 2318914
Understanding how populations responded to environmental changes in the past can often help us predict how resilient they might be to future climate changes. By using ancient DNA samples of Pacific cod found in bones from middens (i.e., trash heaps from archeological sites) throughout Alaska, Sara Schaal will evaluate how this ecologically and economically important species evolved in response to two major climatic events of the past.

Award #: 2317774
Jessica Turner’s research focuses on the role of phytoplankton community composition in surface ocean carbon uptake in the West Antarctic Peninsula region of the Southern Ocean. Phytoplankton are microscopic plants that make up the base of the ocean food web, and the type of phytoplankton present can alter how much carbon uptake occurs and the quality of food available for higher trophic levels.

Award #: 2317873
Elizabeth Webb will use data from satellites to study how climate change is affecting Arctic landscapes. This research will use satellite images to track changes in Arctic lake area over time.

Award #: 2317970
Polar marine fishes are particularly vulnerable to climate warming, yet little is known about how fish sense temperature. This project aims to identify proteins that underlie temperature sensing in three key Arctic fish species that vary in their preferred temperature environment.