Department of Earth & Environmental Services Impact Report FY23-24
College
of Sciences
Department of Earth & Environmental Services
Fiscal Year 2023-2024
Dear Donor,
As my frst academic year as Chair of Earth and Environmental Sciences ends, I want to thank you for your generous support.
Learning and experiencing more within and outside the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, I am excited and honored to be part of it. I have so enjoyed hearing your stories of the many friends, mentors, and experiences that populate your warm memories of this department and the university, and the depths of gratitude you feel for your time at SDSU. Those debts pale in comparison, to the appreciation we all feel for what you have become, how that refects on the department, and the many ways that you have elevated us through your legacies and the ways you give back.
We are deeply thankful that our generous donors fuel so much of this success in ways that impact our students so fantastically. In closing, please visit us! I would be delighted to connect you with those whose lives you have touched so deeply.
Jessica H. Whiteside , Ph.D. Chair and Professor Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
Changing Lives through Program Support
Vince Landis Geology Student Field Experience Endowment
This year, the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences received several gifts in honor of the late Dr. Vince Landis, allowing the establishment of the Vince Landis Geology Student Field Experience Endowment, which supports undergraduate and graduate students majoring in Geology to have experiential learning and research opportunities through feld experiences.
Dr. Landis was a faculty emeritus from the Department of Chemistry and made a substantial impact on students during his 45 years of service at SDSU. He attended various feld trips with students and faculty from the then Department of Geology and thought very highly of these student experiences and their overall impact on student learning.
The late Dr. Vince Landis
Living the Aztec Experience
Brad Keith, Class of 2024
Class Level: Graduate Student College: College of Sciences
Major: Paleoceanography
Brad Keith was selected as the department's Outstanding MS student and best master’s presentation for the academic year 2023-2024.
Brad worked with Sam Bova on a thesis entitled: HalfPrecession Pacing of the Southern Westerly Winds and the Patagonia Ice Sheet over the Last 900,000 Years. At the same time, he completed a master’s certifcate in professional writing, worked as the testing director and lead engineer of the Autonomous Underwater Ground Vehicle program for the US Navy and US Marine Corps, and was a father to two young children.
On the Monday following graduation, Brad started a full-time position to further his autonomous vehicle and bathymetry work at Point Loma.
Jennasea Fisher , Class of 2024
Class Level: Undergraduate Student College: College of Sciences
Major: Geology
Jennasea was selected as the most Outstanding BS Geology student this year.
She double majored in Geology and Music, with the highest GPA and attention to detail, including drawing the score to a song from Lord of the Rings on her graduation cap.
She worked with Matt Weingarten on her thesis, Evidence for Active Faults as Hydraulic Barriers to Groundwater Flow in Warner Springs Basin, and was a leader in many of the department feld trips.
Samantha Madonia, Class of 2024 Class Level: Undergraduate Student College: College of Sciences Major: Environmental Sciences
Samantha Madonia was the most Outstanding Environmental Sciences BS student at graduation this year.
Samantha worked with Trent Biggs in Geography on changes in air temperature and heat stress experienced by farm workers in the Imperial Valley.
She then pivoted to examine the policy context around heat stress and compiled an impressive policy inventory and an analytical framework to summarize and classify the policies. She presented her work to USDA representatives last spring and is working with a post-doc and to make the policy paper publishable this summer.
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Congratulations, Samantha, on being this year's Outstanding Environmental Sciences BS student!
Celebrating Shared Success
Recent Rankings
SDSU ranked #98 in Earth Sciences
Statistics of Interest
Underwent an ofcial name change, and what used to be known as the Department of Geological Sciences is now the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences The department published 32 research papers and received over $1.7M in grant funding 59 students were celebrated at Spring Graduation
Recent Highlights
$117,100 in scholarship funds this year alone that supported 26 of our students and the selection of our best undergraduate thesis and master's presentations.
Authorized to hire in the area of Critical Minerals Resources, which will address some standard curricular needs but, most importantly, will springboard us into leadership in a vital feld. Minerals of essential strategic value in the U.S. are crucial to a sustainable economy balanced with a high, equitable quality of life. There is a state- and nationally-recognized workforce gap in this area. We have all been reading about the health troubles linked to the Salton Sea and the promises of the lithium on its southern shore, and we in EES are deeply involved on these fronts, but who knew that the lake also has a connection to earthquakes? Well, PhD student Ryley Hill, Prof. Matt Weingarten, and Prof. Tom Rockwell et al. have shown us that seismic activity in the fault-dissected region correlates with lake level over thousands of years, teaching us about the history and risks of the region and some fundamental new things about how earthquakes work. This exciting discovery appeared recently in the prestigious journal Nature, was picked up by over 150 media stories, and showcased our excellence in geophysical studies. We are also leaders on another front essential to society: climate change over thousands (Dr. Sam Bova) to millions of years (Prof. Jessica Whiteside), including leadership in developing a new view of natural variation in atmospheric CO2 over the last 400 million years. This perspective has and will feed into a better mechanistic understanding of human impacts, as well as headlinedominating policy decisions and science at the forefront of global contributions (e.g., for the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP 28 and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).
SDSU ranked #98 in Earth Sciences
Helping to Build a Brighter Future
Samantha Bova, PhD
Title: Assistant Professor of Geological Sciences, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences College: College of Sciences
Achievement: Dr. Bova received two NSF awards and published several high-profle papers on CO2 changes over the last 1 million years of climate history, including the epic ice ages.
Dr. Samantha Bova is a paleoceanographer and paleoclimatologist who is researching how the Earth’s climate has changed over time.
Her work has been helping to solve a big mystery in climate science: why models of climate change in the past 12,000 years have not always lined up with available temperature data.
Jessica Whiteside, PhD
Title: Department Chair and Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences College: College of Sciences
Achievement: Dr. Whiteside received International Continental Drilling Program (ICDP) $1.5 million in funding to drill the Colorado Plateau, the only lead from a CSU to lead an ICDP project.
She was featured in PBS Nova series on co-evolution of earthclimate-life and served as a delegate to UN COP28 and UN IPCC next-gen CO2 curve. Dr. Whiteside also received lots of media attention for work on killer trees in the Devonian some 400 million years ago.
Pictured right is Dr. Whiteside holding a vial of volcanic ash collected by geologist and army surgeon Henry Carter 100 miles north of Krakatoa on August 27, 1883. This dust, which fell thickly on the decks, masts, ropes, and sails of a small British sailing vessel, is a light gray color and represents a mix of minerals and glass violently ejected during the eruption.
