Faculty & Staff

Eman Ghoneim, Ph.D.

Professor, Coordinator - Geospatial Technologies Minor

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Dr. Ghoneim is a physical geographer with primarily interest in the application of Remote Sensing, Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and geomorphology in the coastal studies, surface and subsurface water resources.

Dr. Ghoneim is particularly interested in arid and semiarid environment and natural hazards such as:

• Global climate change
• Sea level rise
• Flash flood risk

Ai Ning Loh, Ph.D.

Professor

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Patti Mason

Senior Lecturer

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Ms. Mason is interested in the taxonomy, micropaleontology, paleoecology, biostratigraphy, and paleoenvironments of late Cretaceous foraminifera, especially with regards to changes in diversity and fossil assemblages as one approaches the K-P boundary.

Current research is looking at benthic and planktonic foraminifera from Coniacian through Maastrichtian sediments from core samples drilled in the North Carolina coastal plain.

Emma Morris, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

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Dr. Morris is a sedimentary geologist who works in a variety of different depositional environments, including deepwater depositional systems, deltaic and shallow marine depositional systems. She is also very interested in the impact of humans on natural depositional systems, specifically the impact of dams and reservoirs on the sedimentation of river systems, such as the Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell.

Her most recent research examines the potential of coal as a source of rare earth elements (REEs) and critical minerals, to help plug the gap in US domestic supplies of REEs and Critical Minerals.

She uses a mix of traditional fieldwork, drone photogrammetry, virtual outcrop models and geochemical analysis for her research. 

Yalei You, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

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Dr. You's research interests are focused on deepening our understanding of global precipitation science from satellite observations. He has worked on 15 NOAA and NASA projects since 2014 as the Principal Investigator (PI) or Co-PI. He has collaborated with 70+ leading researchers/scientists from several U.S. federal agencies (including NASA, NOAA, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and around the world (including United States, China, Japan, France, Italy, and India). 

Currently, Dr. You is focusing on two on-going research topics:

1. To improve the global snowfall and rainfall measurement from a satellite constellation perspective instead of from a single sensor. This work is supported by NASA.
2. To produce the climate data record (e.g., precipitation) from multiple satellite observations. This work is supported by NOAA.

Elizabeth Hines, Ph.D.

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Liz Hines pursues an eclectic mix of interests. She is an inveterate South watcher and monitors changing Southern cultural characteristics. She also keeps an eye on modern hate crime perpetrators and victims and changing hate crimes statutes.

She teaches World Regional Geography, Cartography and Planning. Additionally, Dr. Hines directs the Geography Internship program. Her newest research is on apartheid removals in South Africa, a continuation of her interest in social justice issues.

She also collaborates with Eliza Steelwater in collecting and compiling data on American lynching under the auspices of Project HAL (Historic American Lynching). She is Board Secretary of LINC, Inc., an organization that helps people transition from prison to society and a member of Wilmington's Long Range Planning Committee.

Patricia Kelley, Ph.D.

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Evolution and paleoecology of Coastal Plain mollusks are the focus of Patricia Kelley's research. Ongoing studies include conservation paleobiology; tempo and mode of evolution; role of biological factors such as predation in evolution; predator-prey coevolution and escalation; mass extinction and recovery of mollusk faunas.

Todd A. LaMaskin, Ph.D.

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Dr. LaMaskin uses information contained in layered rock successions to better understand how and why major earth systems change over time. Dr. LaMaskin's research investigates processes that are controlled by climatic forces and by the tectonic evolution of ancient mountain belts and active continental margins. 

Michael Smith, Ph.D.

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Michael Smith's academic research ranges from the study of mid-Proterozoic crustal rocks in west Greenland to the 2.2 Ma old volcanic rocks of the upper Yellowstone Valley to the petrography and provenance of historic and prehistoric ceramic sherds.

Other research interests include:

• The technological and geological history of the gold mining rush in the southeastern United States from 1799 to 1864 with Dr. M. Elizabeth Hines
• The development of the North Carolina Geological surveys.
• Tracing of the William Alonzo Allen family history (author of the "Sheep Eaters" and "Adventures with Indians and Game, or Twenty Years in the Rocky Mountains")
• Working with the Rothschild Archives
• The Ceramic Petrology working group at the British Museum on the sources and the elusive movement of quicksilver (mercury) to the gold mining operations in the American South

• William F. Ainsley, Jr.
• William J. Cleary
• James A. Dockal
• W. Burleigh Harris
• Patricia Kelley
• Todd A. LaMaskin
• Duncan P. Randall
• Paul A. Thayer