My undergraduate research interests at the University of Notre Dame involved petrological and chemical analyses of a particular suite of geologic samples from the Apollo Missions. My research focused on understanding the chemical and thermodynamic differentiation sequences that formed during the lunar magma ocean, developing a numerical model to simulate the chemical differentiation sequences during the mixing of the LMO by reconciling both thermodynamic and fluid dynamics constraints, and characterizing the timeline of the LMO. 

I utilized transmitted polarized light microscopes and the accompanying photomosaicking and manipulation software to document various lunar samples. I also conducted electron micro-probe analyses (EMPA) to acquire major elemental compositions of mineral phases within the lunar anorthositic crust. The ultimate goal of this work involved incorporation of geochemical data into the current lunar formation model in order to refine the accuracy of the existing model and to add to the current lunar geochemical database.  

Summer 2017 Research

I was a 2017 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow in Oceanography (SURFO) Program at the Graduate School of Oceanography (GSO) at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston, RI. 

My project was entitled, "Spectral Characteristics of a Variety of Open Ocean Regions." The AGU abstract can be found at https://agu.confex.com/agu/os18/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/326318. In this project, I developed MATLAB structures that calculated the power spectra of sea surface temperatures, salinity, and velocity component gradients to determine relevant turbulence regimes within specific areas of the ocean. The shape of the spatial power spectrum associated with the characteristics of the upper ocean (e.g., sea surface temperatures (SST), ocean currents) informs us about the potential dynamics of regions of interest. In recent work, data from the satellite-borne sensor, VIIRS, are of such high quality that one can determine accurate spectra from spatial scales of 1 km to hundreds of km. I explored spectra for the Sargasso Sea in the region between the Gulf Stream and Bermuda. Specifically, I generated spectra from VIIRS SST fields for several other regions in the ocean to determine the spectral slopes for these regions and observe how these slopes vary both seasonally and annually. Ultimately, various turbulence regimes could be assigned to specific open ocean regions with characteristic spectral slopes. 

Summer 2018 Research

My research during the summer of 2018 was conducted via various grants at the University of Notre Dame under my advisor Dr. David Richter in the Department of Civil, Environmental Engineering, and Earth Sciences. I was tasked with implementing and developing a Lagrangian stochastic Ordinary Differential Equation (ODE) Model in MATLAB for sea-spray evaporation in the Marine Atmospheric Boundary Layer. I utilized numerical integration methods and schemes such as the Runge-Kutta method to observe radial and temporal evolution of sea-spray particles from known and unknown distributions or from Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS) inputs. The overarching goal of this project was to quantify sensible and latent heat fluxes at the air-sea interface to delineate boundary conditions and incorporate and resolve droplet microphysics into large-scale and mesoscale atmospheric and oceanic circulation models.