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MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
College of Natural Science
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences

EES Distinguished Speaker Series - Spring 2026

The Distinguised Speaker Series is the Department of
Earth and Environmental Sciences Weekly Seminar

Meets* on Fridays at 12:30 PM
in Natural Sciences Building Rm  304
*unless noted otherwise

Date Speaker Affiliation Title Host
January 16 Lev Horodyskyj Science Voices Untraditional Pathways:  From High-Tech Labs to Rainforest Makerspaces Tyrone Rooney
January 23 Conel Alexander Carnegie Science Meteorites are guides to the formation of the Solar System and Earth Seth Jacobson
January 30 Dylan Wilmeth Grand Valley State University The Upper Peninsula 2.2 Billion Years Ago: Salty Seas, Giant Fossils, and Carbon Swings Dalton Hardisty
Feburary 6 Tyler Lark Michigan State University Agricultural Land Systems Science: Big-picture approaches to conserving America’s working lands Anthony Kendall
Feburary 27 Warren Wood Michigan State University The Carbon Cycle Model: Aquifers Are the Womb of Weathering, From Which Flow the Ruins of Continents and the Nutrients of Life  
March 13 Megan McCullen Wayne State University We all need more space: engaging the public through planetariums and museums Megan Elwood Madden
March 20 Ryan Shell U.S. Forest Service Paleontology on Michigan's Federal Lands: Unsolved Mysteries Katie Maloney
March 27 June Wicks Johns Hopkins University Planetary building blocks at the extremes of pressure and temperature Susannah Dorfman
April 3 Michael Gottfried Michigan State University Bird Bones to Beach Cobbles - New Insights into the Geologic History of the Falkland Islands  
April 10 Vedran Lekić University of Maryland Decoding Earthquake and Marsquake Waveforms to Reveal Planetary Interiors  
April 24 Alessandro Morbidelli College de France / Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur Terrestrial planet formation Seth Jacobson

EES Graduate Student PhD Dissertation and MS Thesis Defenses

Date Student Event Title Time and Location
January 14 Katie Quinlan MS Thesis Defense Variability in groundwater oxidation-reduction potential and its chemical and microbiological implications: a study of the Saginaw Aquifer of Mid-Michigan 1:00 PM in Giltner Hall Rm 275
April 6 Riley Zhang PhD Dissertation Defense Seismic attenuation and earthquake stress drop in the Tongan and Pampean Flat-slab subduction zones 12:00 PM in Berkey Hall Rm 207
April 7 Jackson Barnes PhD Dissertation Defense The formation of planetesimals through gravitational collapse 12:00 PM in Natural Sciences Building Rm 304
April 7 Ryan Jayne PhD Dissertation Defense Spatial and temporal modeling of agricultural systems using Bayesian methods and radar remote sensing 2:00 PM in Berkey Hall Rm 100

MSU Seminars of Possible Interest to Earth and Environmental Sciences Department Staff and Students

Date Speaker and Affiliation Title Host Time and Location
January 22 Richard Lenski, Michigan State University Dynamics and repeatability of evolution in a long-term experiment with bacteria Physics and Astronomy Colloquia 3:30 PM in Biomedical and Physical Sciences (BPS) Building Rm 1415
January 23 Jeffrey Freymueller, Michigan State University Present-day uplift and subsidence caused by glacial isostatic adjustment in the Great Lakes region Quaternary Landscapes Research Group (Quidders) Talks 4:00 PM in Geography Building Rm 126
February 4 Marvin Morgan, University of Texas, Austin Testing the origins of giant planets with population-level eccentricities and stellar obliquities  Astronomy Seminar 12:30 PM in Biomedical and Physical Sciences (BPS) Building Rm 1400
February 6 Trent Adams, Michigan Geological Survey Aggregate resource inventory and mapping in northern lower Michigan Quaternary Landscapes Research Group (Quidders) Talks 4:00 PM in Geography Building Rm 126
February 20 Dave Lusch, Michigan State University Nunataks in the Barryton Sublobe terrain Quaternary Landscapes Research Group (Quidders) Talks 4:00 PM in Geography Building Rm 126
February 25 Juliette Becker, University of Wisconsin, Madison Companions as clues: understanding hot Jupiter formation Astronomy Seminar 12:30 PM in Biomedical and Physical Sciences (BPS) Building Rm 1400
March 12 Dani DellaGiustina, University of Arizona Exploring asteroids with the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft and samples  Physics and Astronomy Colloquia 3:30 PM in Biomedical and Physical Sciences (BPS) Building Rm 1415
March 19 Andrew Mann, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Planetary systems through time Physics and Astronomy Colloquia 3:30 PM in Biomedical and Physical Sciences (BPS) Building Rm 1415
March 20 Rachel Lau, Michigan State University Eco-geomorphology of Great Lakes coastal wetlands Quaternary Landscapes Research Group (Quidders) Talks 4:00 PM in Geography Building Rm 126
March 25 Jiayin Dong, University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne Toward a unified framework for giant planet demographics Astronomy Seminar 12:30 PM in Biomedical and Physical Sciences (BPS) Building Rm 1400
April 2 Nicole Zellner, Albion College Stories of science and self: A book of astrobiologists’ memoirs Physics and Astronomy Colloquia 3:30 PM in Biomedical and Physical Sciences (BPS) Building Rm 1415
April 8 Merel van 't Hoff, Purdue University Unveiling the initial conditions for planet formation Astronomy Seminar 12:30 PM in Biomedical and Physical Sciences (BPS) Building Rm 1400
April 10 Mason Rutgers, Michigan State University A Pedological Investigation of Afforested Relict Prairies in Newaygo County, Michigan Quaternary Landscapes Research Group (Quidders) Talks 4:00 PM in Geography Building Rm 126
April 24 Pat Colgan, Grand Valley State University Update on the Montcalm County, Michigan mapping project Quaternary Landscapes Research Group (Quidders) Talks 4:00 PM in Geography Building Rm 126
May 1 Alan Arbogast, Michigan State University Human and Holocene time scales collide: 30 years of dune research in Michigan Quaternary Landscapes Research Group (Quidders) Talks 4:00 PM in Geography Building Rm 126