People

Erich Osterberg
Associate Professor of Earth Sciences

My overarching research objective is to understand how and why climate has changed and identify trends and sources of air pollution. My specialty is creating long (50-50,000 years) records of climate change and air pollution by analyzing chemical markers preserved in glacier ice cores. I also study data from weather stations and climate models to determine recent climate trends to differentiate natural cycles from human-caused changes. I am particularly interested in aspects of climate change that impact communities, including sea-level rise from melting glaciers, and the changing number and intensity of storms. Contact me at Erich.C.Osterberg@dartmouth.edu and see my CV here.

Jacob Chalif
Lab Manager and Research Associate

My primary role involves operating and repairing our continuous melter system and performing geochemical analyses on ice core meltwater samples. Outside of the lab, I plan for upcoming coring projects and process and analyze data from various ice core projects. I also use modern climate models and weather station records to examine changing atmospheric circulation patterns over the US. Right now, for example, I am using machine learning techniques to examine how a 20th-century cooling trend in the Southeast may have been influenced by slight shifts in jet stream waviness.

Maggie Lonergan
Masters Student

My interest in climate change and extreme weather events led me to leave a data science career and apply those skills to climate data. I am studying how to interpret wildfire markers in the North Pacific ice cores by combining records from the instrumental period with the ice core records to determine how faithfully and consistently each core records evidence of wildfire. This will provide guidance in how to interpret the fire markers in the cores from before the instrumental period.

Lilly Tipton
Masters Student

I am a masters student interested in climate change and the record it leaves in the cryosphere. At Dartmouth, I will be researching dust concentration in Antarctic ice cores throughout the Holocene and how these fluctuations relate to changes in climate and atmospheric circulation.

Eric Youth ’23
Undergraduate Student

I am an Environmental Earth Sciences major with an intended minor in Environmental Science. Recently, I have been reconstructing prehistoric North Pacific climate and wildfire activity through the analysis of fire indicators in the Denali, Mt. Logan, and Eclipse ice cores. This fall, I will assist with the continuous melting of a new ice core from Denali to enhance the record of North Pacific climate change over the Holocene, particularly during the Medieval Climate Anomaly and the Little Ice Age.

Alana Macken ’23
Undergraduate Student

I am a senior from northern California studying physics and earth science with an interest in climate and wildfire. I am currently working on my Senior Honors Thesis studying wildfire growth and smoke production near the Denali Ice Core. My goal is to help the lab understand the context of wildfire ash layers in the ice cores drilled in Alaska.

Gavin Fry ’25
Undergraduate Student

My childhood fascination with weather has developed into a full blown passion for studying climate’s effects on severe weather. My broad research interests include climate variability and its impact on mid-latitude weather. In my future, I hope to use my scientific background in climate science and meteorology to make an impact on policy-making on Capitol Hill by providing timely climate information to key decision-makers. Currently, I am working on a research project examining the sub-seasonal climatology of extreme winter weather events in Texas, like the February 2021 “deep freeze” that exacerbated energy grid failures. 

Past Lab Group Members

Katie Anderson MSc ’20

Zayta Thundercloud UG ’18, Lab Manager 2018-2019

Huanping Huang PhD ’19

Gabe Lewis PhD ’19

Dave Ferris, Lab Manager 2013-2018

Dom Winski UG ’09, PhD ’18

Karina Graeter MSc ’17

Gifford Wong PhD ’15

Sam Beal PhD ’14

Matthew Siegfried MSc ’10

Ben Gross MSc ’09

Undergraduates

Liam Kirkpatrick UG ’22

Victoria Hoffner UG ’22

Abigail Lambert UG ’22

Chantal Elias UG ’22

Kat Adelman UG ’21

Andrew Binder UG ’21

Isabel BoettcherUG ’20

Maxwell Bond UG ’20

Victor Cabrera UG ’20

Catherine Granville UG ’20

Lydia Blanchet UG ’19

Julianne DeAngelo UG ’19

Eleanor Dowd UG ’19

Kevin Gross UG ’19

Melissa Dunham UG’18

Ursula Jongebloed UG ’18

Mariana Webb UG ’18

Tyler Kelsall UG ’17

Erin McConnell UG ’17

David Polashenski UG ’17

Patrick Saylor UG ’17

Fredrik Eriksson UG ’16

Bradley Garczynski UG ’16

Sarah Caughey UG ’15

Kristen Colwell UG ’14

Nikolas Ortman UG ’14

Sam Streeter UG ’14

Alfredo Velasco UG ’14

Aryeh Drager UG ’13

Hazel Shapiro UG ’13

John Thompson UG ’13

Elle Anderson UG ’11

Amy Burzynski UG ’11

Tom Callahan UG ’10

Joy Campbell UG ’10

Alexander Lee UG ’10

Anna Lugosch-Ecker UG ’10

Tina Praprotnik UG ’09

Sarah Stern UG ’08