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 |
| May 8 | Jeremy Rapp | PhD Dissertation Defense | Evaluating annual Landsat-based irrigation maps for fit-for-purpose use: agreement, disagreement, and model sensitivity in the contiguous United States | 1:00 PM in Natural Sciences Rm 204 |
| July 16 | Behnaz Mirzendehdel | PhD Dissertation Defense | The role of climate variability and change in drought severity and aquifer dynamics in the mekong river basin | 11:00 AM in Natural Sciences Rm 204 |
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 |