Research Interests

I’ve been broadly interested in quantifying rates and processes of geomorphic systems since the bedrock sinuosity research I conducted with Dr. Sarah Schanz during my senior year as an undergraduate. A grad seminar course with my current advisor, Dr. Andrew Moodie, helped me narrow and elucidate my interest in examining threshold behaviors in fluvial systems and the processes that govern them.

During the course, we discussed topics across multiple spatial scales from bedload/suspended load transport and bedform stability, through channel mobility, levee and mouth bar formation, to large-scale backwater dynamics. Despite their differences, these autogenic phenomena share a common trait: disturbances perturb the system, iterative adjustments follow, and a qualitatively new landform can emerge. For example, the natural switching of channels occurs when accommodation space cannot keep pace with sedimentation, resulting in flow overtopping and forcing the flow to search for a preferential pathway. The initial location of a mouth bar can be approximated when the flow along the centerline is most widely dispersed, creating a high sedmentation rate in the area. Answering questions like these that explore when and how these critical transitions occur—whether abruptly or gradually—under varying boundary conditions sparks my interest, as it is compelling that we can reveal physical rules through finding and assessing different variables that shape river landscapes.

My ideal research approach is to use field-based data as a grounding for validation or theoretical development, while using numerical models and laboratory experiments as complementary tools for scaling insights across time and space. I believe that field measurements provide an essential foundation that enables these tools to achieve their greatest potential to capture the complexity of natural systems.

Taken together, I seek to join a Ph.D. program that allows me to be open to a broad range of Earth-surface systems through the lens of threshold dynamics, feedbacks, and landscape transitions, integrating fieldwork with numerical and experimental approaches.