Annual Event Student-Led Since Its Founding in 1988

Each year, a new group of Department of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences (EAS) student volunteers organize and plan the annual EAS Student Research Conference at the University of Houston.

The conference is held in Science & Research Building 1 and includes oral presentations in two morning sessions and posters on the first, second and third floors in the afternoon. The event also includes visits of the EAS lab facilities, an awards ceremony, and a group photo of the entire EAS Department.

The event is designed for students to obtain experience in organizing a conference, practice their presentations skills, and share their research with both faculty and industry experts.

This year's event had a record attendance of approximately 300 persons, including members of the EAS department, EAS alumni, and visitors from Houston-based oil and environmental industries. There were 70 presentations (24 oral and 46 poster) by EAS undergraduate, M.S. and Ph.D. students in the fields of geology, geophysics and atmospheric science. The talks and posters were judged by a team of 33 EAS faculty and industry experts.

The 2019 abstracts and conference program, along with information on conferences in past years, can be viewed at www.uh.edu/nsm/earth-atmospheric/news-events/research-day/.

Thanks go to the UH College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics and BP for their generous, financial contributions to this event.

Student Organizers

Oral Presentation Awards

Session 1

First Place: Ebrahim Eslami: A hybrid AI hurricane forecasting system: deep learning ensemble approach and Kalman filter
Second Place (tie): Manuel Paez-Reyes: Why was there no mass extinction during the Cenomanian-Turonian Oceanic Anoxic Event 2?
Second Place (tie): John Boyle: Tectonic evolution of the Aegean domain, Eastern Mediterranean, since the Early Mesozoic based on 3D slab mapping, unfolding, and characterization from seismic tomography

Session 2

First Place: Amanda Lopez: Tracing Industrial Pollution in Galveston Bay, Texas: Lead Isotopes and Heavy Metal Concentrations
Second Place: Rachel Clark: Investigating glacial dynamics of the Amundsen Sea, West Antarctica: Paleorecords of stability and instability
Third Place: Xin Zhou: Beach and dune morphology changes induced by hurricane Harvey from repeat LIDAR surveys in the Freeport, TX

Poster Presentation Awards

Advanced Ph.D. Students

First Place: Sriharsha Thoram: Implications of Updated Magnetic Anomalies for the Tectonic Evolution of Walvis Ridge
Second Place: Shelby Johnston: Non-Arrhenius behavior of helium diffusion in synthetically treated zircons
Third Place: Jia Jung: The impact of the direct effect of aerosols on meteorology and air quality using aerosol optical depth assimilation during the KORUS-AQ period

M.S. and Early Ph.D. Students

First Place (tie): Andrew Stearns: Hurricane Harvey sedimentation patterns in Buffalo Bayou, Texas
First Place (tie): Geneva Nguyen: Neogene surface uplift of Bolivian Central Andes: insights from stable isotopes of hydrated volcanic glass
Third Place: David Li: Beam imaging of fractures around a wellbore using sonic logging data

Undergraduate Students

First Place: Laura Taylor: Fluid inclusions from carbonates from the Grand Canyon; More evidence for the old canyon model
Second Place (tie): Bryan Moore: Mapping of Central Atlantic fracture zones and continent-ocean boundaries using satellite derived marine gravity data
Second Place (tie): Jeffrey Lee: Image classification of vegetation from LIDAR data using a neutral network approach

Special Thanks to the Judging Panel

A special thanks to our distinguished panel of 33 EAS faculty and industry judges who volunteered their time and expertise to judge 70 student posters and talks.

Eleven EAS Faculty Judges: Daniel Hauptvogel, Xun Jiang, Bernhard Rappenglueck, Will Sager, Joel Saylor, Jinny Sisson, Jiajia Sun, Alex Robinson, Robert Talbot, Bob Wang, Yuxuan Wang.

Twenty-two Industry Judges: Tat Banga (Shell), Elizabeth Beal (Shell), Mauro Becker (TAMU), Lisa Buckner, Humberto Caravajal-Ortiz (Corelab), Fernando Castillo (Q-Spectrum Solutions), Veronica Castillo (Repsol), Haibin Di (Schlumberger), Luke Francis (BP), Michael Frish (Physical Sciences), Rosemarie Geetan (BP), Larry Greene (Marathon), Gary Guthrie (Marathon-ret.), Peter Lanzarone (BP), Tess Menotti (Chevron), Victor Ogunmola (Exxon-Mobil), Clayton Painter (ConocoPhillips), Anthony Ricardi (BP), John Serbeck (Hilcorp Energy), Ben Schupack (BP), Paola Vera de Newton (Ikon Science), and Guanyan Xia (BP).