Biography
Sam joined the School of Earth Sciences in spring 2019 as a Lecturer/Assistant Professor in Quaternary Geology. Previously, he earned a BSc. in Geology from Dalhousie University in 2007, an MSc in Quaternary and Climate Studies in 2009 from the University of Maine, and a PhD from the State University of New York at Buffalo in Geology in 2014. Before joining the staff at UCD, Sam was a Post Doctoral Fellow and Lecturer at the University of Waterloo in Canada.
My research focuses on how the landscape changes. Specifically, I'm interested on how changes in climate are reflected in the landscape we see today. To examine the connection between past changes in climate and features in the landscape I use a mixture of geochemistry, mapping, and stratigraphy to examine what is preserved in the geologic record.
Technical description
My interests lie in the connections between earth surface processes, ice sheets and glaciers, and changes in climate. Broadly, my work involves studying the landscape, mapping geologic features, and collecting samples for laboratory analyses that allow us to better understand the changing landscape around us. One of the tools I use in my work is terrestrial cosmogenic nuclides, which can tell us about when and how fast geomorphic processes occur. For example, the amount of cosmogenic nuclides in a rock can tell us when the last ice sheets receded off the landscape at the end of the most recent ice age, perhaps giving us insight into the reaction of present ice sheets to on going warming.
Role
- Funded Investigator
Institution
- UCD
Research Area
- Earth Science in Society
Expertise
- Geohazards and Geoengineering
