SCRiM Summer Scholars 2014
The SCRiM Summer Scholars Program enables selected undergraduates and early career graduate student to work on independent research projects under the mentorship and support of SCRiM researchers. Students in the SCRiM Summer Scholars Program work on their projects full-time for nine weeks in the summer, starting 2 June 2014. In order to allow the Summer Scholars to fully focus on their research, SCRiM provides each Scholar with a stipend of $4,500. The students live in university apartments and receive full access to Penn State facilities.
In addition to conducting independent research, the Summer Scholars attend weekly student development luncheons. Through these activities, the Summer Scholars share their ideas, discuss individual projects, and interact with SCRiM investigators and researchers. This year, the Summer Scholars had the opportunity to spend time with Dr. Robert Nicholas, Dr. Klaus Keller, Dr. Patrick Applegate, Dr. Gregory Garner, Dr. Murali Haran, Dr. Chris Forest, Dr. Nancy Tuana, and SCRiM graduate student Robert Ceres.
At the completion of the program, the Summer Scholars presented their research work in a public poster session held in Penn State’s College of Earth and Mineral Sciences Museum & Art Gallery on Friday, August 1st.
Brandon graduated from Fort Valley State University with a B.S. in Chemistry in May 2014 and will join Penn State as a junior in the fall, pursuing a second B.S. in Geosciences. This summer, Brandon worked in the Department of Meteorology under the supervision of Drs. Kenneth Davis and Thomas Lauvaux, detecting and analyzing methane seeps in Marcellus gas drilling region of northern Pennsylvania.
Mercedes graduated from Fort Valley State University with a B.S. in Chemistry in May 2014 and will join Penn State as a junior in the fall, pursuing a second B.S. in Geosciences. Mercedes worked within the Department of Geosciences under the supervision of Drs. Klaus Keller and Chris Forest and graduate student Kelsey Ruckert, preliminarily quantifying the sensitivity of the Glaciers and Small Ice Caps Model (Wigley and Raper, 2005).
Kayla recently graduated from California State University, Fresno with a B.S. in Environmental Sciences and will join Penn State's Dickinson School of Law as a student in the fall. This summer, Kayla worked under the supervision of Dr. Kenneth Davis on assessing current air quality monitoring systems and utilizing tropospheric ozone data to determine whether or not there was a significance variation among three sites in Pennsylvania from 2007-2012.
Taisiya is currently a masters student in the Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology at Stockholm University, Sweden. This summer, Taisiya worked under the supervision of Drs. Patrick Applegate and David Pollard on testing ablation schemes for ice sheet model simulations of the Greenland Ice Sheet.
Zoey just completed her freshman year at the University of Nevada, Reno, pursuing a degree Atmospheric Science with minors in Mathematics and Communications Studies. This summer, Zoey worked under the supervision of Drs. Robert Nicholas, Gregory Garner, and Chris Forest, analyzing factors that contribute to the severity of droughts in the Western United States and understanding how the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) ties into past events.
Nicholas just completed his junior at Towson University, pursing degrees in History and Geography. This summer, Nicholas worked under the supervision of Drs. Robert Nicholas, Gregory Garner, and Chris Forest, on exploring the causes of drought in the southeastern United States.