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Educational Activities

MIT/WHOI Joint Program

Current Students:

Mariya Galochkina (Anne Cohen, Delia Oppo, advisors)

Shouyi (Shawn) Wang (Caroline Ummenhofer, Delia Oppo, advisors)

Former Students:

I have had the privilege and pleasure to advise or co-advise these Joint Program Students.

Alpert, Alice: Alice received her Ph. D in 2016 (Little Ice Age Climate in the Western Tropical Atlantic Inferred from Coral Geochemical Proxies; Anne Cohen, Delia Oppo, co-advisors) and is an American Institute of Physics Policy Fellow in the U.S. Department of State, where she coordinates U.S. engagement with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its assessment reports.

Gibbons, Fern: The Decadal, Centennial and Millenial Variability of the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool (Delia Oppo, Advisor) Ph. D. 2012 (Knauss Post-doctoral Fellowship, next National Conservancy, now Congressional Staffer, Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee)

Full List

Saenger, Casey: Low-latitude western North Atlantic variability during hte last millennium: Insights from coral records, sediment based records, and climate simulations (Anne Cohen, Delia Oppo, Advisors). Ph. D. 2009 (Post-doc at Yale U. Now at U Washington).

Came, Rosemarie: Abrupt Climate Change in the Atlantic Ocean During the Last 20,000 Years: Insights from Multi-element Analyses of Benthic and Planktic Foraminifera and a Coupled OAGCM (Delia Oppo, Advisor) Ph. D. 2005 (Now at University of New Hampshire)

Dahl, Kristina: Tropical Climate Variability from the Last Glacial Maximum to the Present
(Delia Oppo, Advisor) Ph. D. 2005 (Post-doc Scripps)

Makou, Matthew : Geochemical Tools and Paleoclimate Clues: Multi-Molecular and  Isotopic Investigations of Tropical Marine Sediments and Alpine Ice (Timothy Eglinton, Delia Oppo, Advisors)    Ph. D. 2006 (Post-doc Byrd Polar Institute, Ohio State...now at U. of Lyons)

Marchitto, Thomas: Zinc and Cadmium in Benthic Foraminifera as Tracers of Ocean Paleochemistry (William Curry and Delia Oppo, Advisors) Ph D. 1999 (Post-doc LDEO; Now at U. Colorado, Boulder)

Paleoclass

MIT/WHOI Joint Program Course - Topics in Paleoceanography (12.708)

Rotating instructors: A. Condron, K, Costa, O. Marchal, D. Oppo

We designed this seminar class to supplement the more formal classes offered in the Joint Program. Each year, we read and discuss classic and new papers from an important topic in Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology. Because the typical graduate student is in the JP for approximately 5 years, we return to some key topics every 5 or so years. Some topics are covered more frequently, often with a change in focus from a previous year.

 

oppo lab photo

Postdoctoral Fellows and Investigators

I feel fortunate to have sponsored many postdoctoral scientists.

Current:

Wanyi Li: Working on Common Era climate change in the North Atlantic region, as well as on proxies for Bottom Water Oxygen with Kassandar Costa and me.

Recent:

  • Kassandra Costa, 2018 Worked on a variety of projects and is now on the scientific staff at WHOI.
  • Natalie Umling, 2017 Worked on deglacial ocean circulation. Now at the American Museum of Natural Histoy.
  • Jake N. Howe, 2016 Worked on deglacial ocean circulation.
  • Jennifer Arbuszewski, reconstructing past oceanographic changes in the tropical Pacific, using organic and inorganic proxies.
  • Kuo-Fang "Denner" Huang, who is made all kinds of geochemical analyses on water and sediment samples from our Demerara Rise cruise, and is now at Academica Sinica in Taiwan.
  • Nathalie Dubois, who measured leaf wax isotopes as tracers of water isotopes and vegetation, and has begun a permanent position at EAWAG in Switzerland. Manuscripts on her WHOI work are on the way.
  • David Thornalley, who is working on reconstructing past changes in the Atlantic Ocean on a variety of time scales,  now at Univ. College London.

Full List

Former Fellows and Investigators:

  • Anders Carlson, 2006
  • Youbin Sun, 2004
  • William Thompson, 2004
  • Sarah Das, 2002
  • Brenda Hall; 1999
  • Jerry McManus, 1997

I have also enjoyed my interactions and collaborations with other post-doctoral scientists in the paleo-group, e.g Heather Benway and Joanne Muller.

Happy to report that Joanne Muller is now faculty at Florida Gulf Coast University.

climate internship photo

Other Students

Undergraduate Summer Student Fellows, Guest Students, and High School Students are often involved in my projects. Several summer students have enrolled in the MIT/WHOI Joint Program after a positive summer experience.

Undergraduate Students

  • 2022 - Muhammad Haikal Abu Bakar (U. Colorado). thermocline variability in the tropical western Pacific during the Common Era
  • 2019 - Mariya Galochkina (Rutgers U.) Ocean heat uptake during the Common Era
  • 2018 - Sarah McGrath (Wooster College) and Nick Lavoie (North Carolina State U.) Millennial climate variability during the last 130,000 years.
  • 2016 - James Kershaw (Cambridge U.) Deep Atlantic temperature change during the last deglaciation.
  • 2015 -  Yuxin Sun (U. Southern Cal.) presented his results on the Suess effect recorded in forams at Ocean Sciences.
  • 2013 - Andrew Gorin (Middlebury College) who worked on Indonesian climate.
  • 2010 -  Bill Curry and I sponsored Summer Student Fellow Sara Sanchez, who worked with us on tropical climate and oceanography.
  • Winter 2010 - Jordan Landers (Williams College) joined our sediment coring cruise to the Demerara Rise. She took lots of photos and maintained a blog. Thank you Jordan!
  • Summer 2009 - Allison Jacobel (Macalester College) worked with Dr. Tim Eglinton and I. Check out her website.

High School Students

  • I often have opportunities for area high school students to work in the lab.
  • I also mentor Science Fair projects for Falmouth High School students. In 2010, one of the students earned a first place at the MIT State Fair, one a third place, and the rest earned honorable mentions. Wow!  I am so proud of all of them for what they learned and accomplished.  Since then, I have provided material for several successful projects each year.

Climate Summer Internship Program

  • In Summer 2009, WHOI's Ocean and Climate Change Institute funded a one-week internship for area high school students. My colleague and former WHOI post-doc, Dr. Joanne Muller and I developed a program to give area high school students from Falmouth High School and Falmouth Academy the opportunity to generate data directly relevant to our ongoing work on reconstructing oceanographic conditions in the Indonesian Seas. The space and microscopes for the program were provided by Famouth Academy. In Summer 2010, a different set of students generated data relevant to our efforts to understand mechanisms of North Atlantic circulation change.
  • In 2012, post-doc Jenny Arbuszewski and I ran the internship - back in the tropics (this time the eastern equatorial Pacific). Jenny did the lion's share of the work:
  • Climate Summer Internship Program Website