I am pleased to announce that the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University is seeking applicants for two PhD students to start in Fall 2021 or potentially earlier. Both PhD positions will be fully funded for 4 years. The two projects will focus on the response of glaciers to climate change and will involve working on two NASA grants related to NASA's High Mountain Asia Team (HiMAT) and NASA's Sea Level Change Team (SLCT). More information on both projects are provided below.
If you are interested in joining my research group, please send me an email ([email protected]) along with your CV. The application deadline for consideration is December 15th. More details on the application process may be found here. Applicants from underrepresented groups are encouraged to apply. All applicants will receive full consideration irrespective of race, color, nationality, gender, religion, age, identity, or disability. Global glacier evolution modeling: impacts on sea level rise and water resources Understanding the magnitude and timing of sea level change is important for all coastal communities. Global glacier mass loss (excluding the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets) currently contribute ~30% of present-day sea level rise. These glaciers are also an important freshwater resource, especially in areas like High Mountain Asia. This project will seek to advance parameterizations of poorly accounted for processes (e.g., debris cover, frontal ablation, glacier dynamics) using remotely sensed observations to refine projections of glacier mass change from 1950-2100. These observations will also be used to advance our ability to calibrate and validate our model. The project will support the development of the Python Glacier Evolution Model (PyGEM) and the PhD student will be an integral member of the NASA HiMAT and SLCT teams. Experience (or willingness to learn) with numerical modeling, computer programming, and/or remote sensing is needed. I expect there will be potential opportunities for the student to support fieldwork (if desired) as well. Fieldwork on debris-covered glaciers in Alaska Many glaciers around the world have a layer of debris on the ice, which controls the glacier melt rate as a thin layer enhances melt, while a thick layer insulates the underlying ice and suppresses it. In Alaska, which is one of the largest contributors to sea level rise, ~50% of glaciers (by area) have considerable debris cover over the glacier's tongue (i.e., the lowermost part of the glacier), yet few in-situ measurements of debris cover in Alaska exist. Here, we seek to deploy a range of equipment (automatic weather stations, ablation stakes, dGPS, etc.) on a debris-covered glacier in Alaska to improve our understanding of debris-covered glaciers and their response to climate change. There is a bit of flexibility in this project to adapt it to the PhD student's interest, but the student will be expected to combine the field data with computational models and/or upscale their work using remote sensing data. The student will also have the opportunity to be an integral member of the NASA HiMAT and SLCT teams. Given the remote nature of this fieldwork, experience (or strong desire/excitement) with backcountry camping and working in a rugged outdoor setting is needed.
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