Dr. Julia Wellner

Julia is a marine geologist in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Houston studying the Holocene climate of the Antarctic, Antarctic Ice Sheet history since the Eocene, and geomorphic signatures of ice sheet retreat across the continental shelf.

Dr. Kelly Hogan

Kelly is a member of the British Antarctic Survey’s Paleo Environments, Ice Sheets and Climate Change team whose goal is to improve understanding of the mechanisms of past change in ice sheets, oceans and global climate. She specializes in providing past and contemporary records of climate and environmental change from high latitude regions.

Dr. Rebecca L. Totten

Rebecca is an Associate Professor at the University of Alabama. She reconstructs glacial behavior and oceanographic history from sediment cores, microfossils, stable isotope geochemistry, and geophysical data. Specifically for THOR, she and her students gather census data of diatoms and foraminifera living in different conditions of the Amundsen Sea and use this information to reconstruct past conditions and drivers of glacial changes.

Dr. Frank Nitsche

Frank is a geophysicist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University. He studies the seafloor around Antarctica and the coastal areas of the US using acoustic mapping techniques and data integration through GIS to reconstruct past ice stream flow and marine processes.

Dr. Lauren Miller

Lauren is an Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia broadly studying past ice sheet and coastal change. Her focus for THOR is reconstructing a meltwater discharge history for TG.

Dr. John Anderson

John is the Maurice Ewing Professor of Oceanography in the Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences at Rice University and a veteran of 24 scientific expeditions to study various aspects of Antarctic marine geology and the historical behavior of ice sheets to inform future changes that may result from climate forcing.

Dr. Alastair Graham

Alastair is a marine geophysicist and geomorphologist studying ice-sheet history and processes using long-timescale observations from sub-polar and polar marine records. For THOR, Ali’s work will focus on the mechanistic understanding of Thwaites Glacier (TG) retreat involving survey using shipborne geophysics, and a related but unfunded collaboration with TARSAN which will obtain high-resolution bathymetry near TG using an AUV. 

Dr. Robert Larter

Robert is a marine geophysicist working at British Antarctic Survey since 1987. His main research focus since 2004 has been on late Quaternary ice sheet history, glacial geomorphology and glacial/glacial-marine processes.

Dr. James Smith

James is a marine geologist at the British Antarctic Survey broadly studying past ice sheet and ice shelf change. His focus for THOR is reconstructing ice shelf history together with the drivers of change. Part of this work involves the recovery of sediment cores from beneath the floating portion of Thwaites, which will be achieved through collaboration with the MELT project.

Asmara Lehrmann

Asmara Lehrmann is a 2020 NSF Graduate Research Fellow working with Dr. Rebecca T. Minzoni at the University of Alabama. She will use microfossil assemblages to reconstruct past changes of Thwaites Glacier on the THOR project.

James Marschalek

Jim is a Postdoctoral Research Associate based at Imperial College London who is collaborating with BAS. His research uses a variety of geochemical methods to trace the provenance of glaciogenic sediments, providing information on the past behaviour of ice sheets.

Colton Byrne

Colton is a double major in Geology and Chemistry at the University of Alabama. His research is focused on reconstructing past oceanographic changes from foraminiferal assemblages and stable isotopes in a sediment core collected in the western Amundsen Sea.

Marianne Heberlein

Marianne is a PhD student at the University of Alabama. Her research with THOR focuses on reconstructing paleoenvironmental and oceanographic changes in the eastern Amundsen Sea using microfossil assemblages, geochemistry and geophysical data.

Emily Archibald

Emily is a PhD student at Imperial College London, working with the British Antarctic Survey. Her research utilizes a range of geochemical and paleomagnetic methods to investigate the provenance of Antarctic sediments and to unravel past ice sheet behaviour.

Jacob Helgeson

Jacob is a Masters student at the University of Alabama. Jacob's research is focused on diatom populations from the water column (with over 15,000 diatoms studied and counting!) and interpreting controls on diatom and foraminiferal assemblages from sediment cores collected offshore of the Dotson and Getz ice shelves.

Santiago Munevar

Santi is a Ph.D. student at the University of Virginia. His research focuses on studying the sensitivity of ice streams to subglacial topography by integrating geological observations and numerical models.

Linda Welzenbach

Linda is the science communications specialist in the Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences at Rice University. She is a geologist and veteran of two expeditions to collect meteorites from Antarctica. Her role for THOR is outreach. She communicates science activities during NBP1902 and serves as the project webmaster.

Sarah J. Slack

Sarah Slack is THOR’s PolarTREK teacher. She teaches STEM at the Montauk school in Brooklyn, NY and has a Masters degree in Plant Biology from the University of Minnesota. She is a member of the city's Middle School Science Leadership Team and loves coaching her school's Science Olympiad team. Sarah blogged during the 2020 cruise on the Nathaniel B. Palmer.

Rachel W. Clark

Rachel currently works at the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Houston. Rachel does research in Marine Geology. Her most recent publication is 'Seismic Stratigraphy of the Shatsky Rise Sediment Cap, Northwest Pacific, and Implications for Pelagic Sedimentation Atop Submarine Plateaus.'

Elaine M. Mawbey

Elaine Mawbey is a Postdoctoral Research Associate on the THOR project, her research is focused on reconstructing past ocean conditions using trace metal proxies in foraminifera found in marine sediments.

Rosemary Burkhalter-Castro

Rosemary is a former Master’s student at the University of South Florida, College of Marine Science where she studied marine geophysics. Her research with THOR included mapping the seafloor near Cosgrove Ice Shelf—specifically cataloging subglacial bedforms and previous grounding zones. Rosemary currently works in the NOAA Office of Coast Survey compiling bathymetry data for nautical charts.

Allison Lepp

Alie is a current Ph.D. student in the Department of Environmental Sciences at The University of Virginia. Her research with THOR will involve examining recent history of subglacial processes, specifically meltwater discharge events, through sedimentological analyses. 

James Kirkham

James is a PhD student working at the British Antarctic Survey and the University of Cambridge. His research uses marine geophysical methods such as swath bathymetry and 3D seismic reflection imaging to study the geomorphological imprints left by water flowing beneath glaciers.

Becky A. Hopkins

Becky is a Ph.D. student at the University of Southampton and BAS who is currently working on Late Quaternary marine sediments from the deep Amundsen Sea. Her work within THOR will focus on reconstructing environmental conditions near Thwaites Glacier using stable isotopes from foraminifera. 

Laura Taylor

Laura is a senior undergraduate at the University of Houston. Her senior thesis uses stable isotope signatures of marine fossils to reconstruct paleowater conditions. Her project with THOR will be assisting with core descriptions and sample collection on cruise NBP20-02.

Victoria Fitzgerald

Victoria Fitzgerald is a 2017 NSF Graduate Research Fellow working with Dr. Rebecca T. Minzoni at the University of Alabama. As a student on the THOR project, she is working to uncover Thwaites Glacier’s most recent unpinning story using geochemistry and microfossil assemblages.

Michael Comas

Michael Comas is a Master's student working with Dr. Julia Wellner at the University of Houston. Michael does research in Marine Geology. His work focuses on Pine Island Glacier proximal to Thwaites.