Kerry Cook, ProfessorDepartment of Geological Sciences
Cook uses computer models to study climate change in Africa and the Americas. Her research focuses on how Earth's surface structures—including water, soil, vegetation, topography, geology and human development—affect atmospheric circulation and precipitation and how those impacts in turn affect surface structures. The insights she gains can be applied to help people better manage water resources in a warming world, including the mitigation of the effects of floods and droughts. She was an author and reviewer for several Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, which have been essential reading for policy makers around the world exploring ways to combat anthropogenic climate change.
Jay BannerDirector, Environmental Science InstituteJackson School of Geosciences
Banner is a professor and the Chevron Centennial Fellow in Geology in the Department of Geological Sciences, as well as director of the Environmental Science Institute. He studies the chemical evolution of groundwater and ancient oceans, and the control of changing climate on these processes. Modern aquifers, ancient limestones and cave deposits, including those of Central Texas, provide excellent records of these processes. He teaches the popular Sustaining a Planet course. Don BlankenshipResearch Scientist, Institute for Geophysics Jackson School of Geosciences
Blankenship uses remote sensing to study Antarctica's ice sheets, with a particular interest in how they are changing in response to climate change and how they might affect global sea level. He is also interested in applying remote sensing techniques to the exploration of Jupiter's ice-covered moon Europa. In 1994, the U.S. Board of Geographic Names designated Antarctica's Blankenship Glacier in his honor. Ginny CataniaResearch Associate, Institute for GeophysicsJackson School of Geosciences
Catania, a research associate at the Institute for Geophysics, is an expert on ice processes that contribute to sea level rise, particularly in the Greenland ice sheet and Antarctica's ice sheets. She designed the "Wired Antarctica" Web page, an interactive site for teachers and students interested in learning more about Antarctic science.
Seth Redfield, Hubble Post-doctoral FellowDepartment of AstronomyCollege of Natural Sciences
Redfield is a Hubble Space Telescope Post-doctoral Fellow. He researches the movement (past, present, and future) Earth and the solar system make as they orbit the center of our Milky Way galaxy. The passage of the solar system through enormous gas clouds that lie between the stars in our galaxy could cause long-term changes in Earth's climate. Other such astronomical influences on Earth's climate have been made. For instance, the Little Ice Age, which occurred in middle of the last millennium and was well documented in Europe and North America, is associated with a period of reduced solar activity, known as the Maunder Minimum.
RSS