Student Research Grants Awarded for 2021
Colorado Scientific Society Memorial Funds Committee, 2021: Jim Paces (chair), Tom Casadevall, Lisa Fisher, Bruce Trudgill, and Ned Sterne
Total grants awarded: about $12,800
Every year, the Colorado Scientific Society’s supports the next generation of scientists by awarding grants through its Memorial Funds Grant Program. The Society maintains five funds established through generous gifts from members and friends. The funds are the Ogden Tweto Fund, the Steven Oriel Fund, the Edwin Eckel Fund, the Bill Pierce Fund, and the George Snyder Fund. Interest accrued during each year is awarded to senior undergraduates and graduate students through a competitive application process. The principal balances remain untouched assuring continuation of the program.
Twenty proposals were received from BS, MS, and PhD students at twelve different institutions. A total of $26,131 was requested for a wide variety of studies focusing on earth science topics throughout the Rocky Mountain West. The award process is competitive and determined by Memorial Research Funds Committee, which in 2021 consisted of Jim Paces, 2020 President and Committee Chair; Tom Casadevall, 2019 President; Bruce Trudgill, 2021 President; Lisa Fisher, Secretary and 2011 Past President, and Ned Sterne, President Elect. After deliberation, the Committee deemed that all submissions were worthy of Society support and portioned the approximately $12,800 of available funds to individual students as grants ranging from $1000 to $200. Funds will be used to help defray field and/or analytical expenses.
Grants were awarded to:
Daan Beelen, PhD candidate at Colorado School of Mines: Evaluating the sedimentary and stratigraphic characteristics of ‘fast’ and ‘slow’ mass transport deposits
Jeremiah Bernau, PhD candidate at University of Utah: What are the environmental thresholds for evaporite deposition? Using depositional records from the Bonneville Salt Flats to understand the effect of changing water availability and climate upon saline landscapes
Megan Borel, PhD candidate at University of Florida: Characterization of a basement-involved thrust in the footwall of the Pioneer Metamorphic Core Complex: implications for deep levels of the Sevier thrust belt and Neoproterozoic to Early Paleozoic Stratigraphy
Rogers (Caldwell) C. C. Buntin, PhD candidate at Old Dominion University: Microbial mat facies and ichnocoenoses in the lower Cretaceous (Albian) Dakota Group, Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.
Zach Canaday, BS candidate at Northern Colorado University: Does Bedrock Composition Control Vegetation Distribution in Lory State Park, Colorado?
Nicholas Ferry, PhD candidate at University of Kansas: Evaluating the Upper Triassic Chinle Formation for aggradational vs. degradational cycles using detrital zircon U-Pb geochronology and provenance, Southeastern Utah
Justin Friend, MS candidate at New Mexico State University: Determining the extent and degree of diagenetic albitization of K-feldspar in Early Permian (Wolfcampian) arkosic, nonmarine, strata throughout New Mexico
Magdalen Grismer, PhD candidate at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology: Constraints on the triggering mechanisms of the Valles Caldera resurgent domes
Mitchell Grimm, MS candidate at Colorado School of Mines: Calculating the “Collective Permeability” of the Natural Fractures within the Upper Cretaceous Pierre Shale, Denver-Julesburg Basin, Denver, Colorado
Danielle Gygi, MS candidate at Baylor University: Early Paleocene Plant Community and Paleoclimate Reconstruction of the Nacimiento Formation form the San Juan Basin, New Mexico
Nicholas Harrison, BS candidate at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology: A study of Abandoned Mine Lands in New Mexico
Emily Iskin, PhD candidate at Colorado State University: Beyond the Case Study: Characterizing Natural Floodplain Heterogeneity in the United States
Thomas Martin, PhD candidate at Colorado School of Mines: Fluvial systems of the Chinle Formation at Petrified Forest National Park: Investigating point-bar and channel-belt architecture and evolution
Carolina Ortiz-Guerrero, PhD candidate at University of Florida: Documentation of Mesoproterozoic thermal events in Belt Supergroup rocks in the Pioneer Mountains Metamorphic Core Complex, using U-Pb geochronology of monazite
April Phinney, MS candidate at Utah State University: Heated Up: Historic and Recent Wildfire Intensities on the Kaibab Plateau, AZ
Trezevant A. Rice, MS candidate at Miami University: Sedimentology and Stratigraphy of Super-Critical Sediment Gravity Flow Deposits in the Upper Cretaceous Mancos Shale, Eastern Utah
Noah Slade, MS candidate at Utah State University: The Geomorphology of Wahweap Creek and its Tributaries: Linking Mammoths, Climate, and Incision Records in Southern Utah
Gregory Stark, PhD candidate at University of Wyoming: The Magmatic Evolution of the Jemez Volcanic Field, New Mexico: Evidence from Isotope Geochemistry and Geochronology
Haley Thorson, MS candidate at Colorado School of Mines: Pre-Laramide Deformation and Salt Tectonism in the Eagle Basin of Central Colorado
Christophe Simbo Wakamya, PhD candidate at Colorado State University: Mobilization and Mitigation of Arsenic and other trace elements during ASR in the brackish Edwards aquifer, New Braunfels, Texas
