David Blake, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
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Dr. David Blake is a petrologist and structural geologist who studies the tectonic evolution of the Laurentian-North American craton and its accreted terranes from the Neoproterozoic to the Mesozoic primarily in the eastern Piedmont of North Carolina for the NCGS STATEMAP program.
Dr. Blake's main focuses & concentrations are:
- Detailed traditional and iPad geologic mapping of deformed igneous
- Metamorphic
- Volcanogenic sedimentary rocks within and between lithotectonic terranes of Eastern Carolina.
- Establishing the lithologic and lithodemic framework of an area microscale to macroscale analyses of structural and metamorphic fabric elements
- The mechanical control that fabric exerts on deformation
- Progressive plastic-brittle deformation
- Overprinting relationships
- Metamorphism during fault zone development
- Plate tectonic interactions responsible for terrane accretion
Peng Gao, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Coordinator - Graduate Certificate in GIS
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Dr. Gao has a broad background in the disciplines of landscape ecology, biogeography, climate extremes (heavy precipitation and flooding, wildfires, and drought) and soil sciences. He is particularly interested in the addressing basic and applied questions of disciplines through applications of:
- Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
- Remote sensing
- Spatial data mining
- Statistical methods
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
Andrea Hawkes, Ph.D.
Professor, MS Geoscience - Graduate Program Coordinator
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Dr. Hawkes' main research interests include the development and application of environmental modeling and quantitative palaeoenvironmental reconstruction techniques. Dr. Hawkes aims to understand the role of earthquakes, tsunamis and storms as driving mechanisms of Quaternary relative sea-level change and coastal evolution.
Dr. Hawkes' research has been undertaken in coastal and wetland ecosystems in temperate and tropical environments (Indonesia, Malaysia, French Polynesia, Belize, Bermuda, Alaska and coastal USA), which are under increasing pressure from a variety of natural and artificial processes.
She aims to produce high-precision geological reconstructions of relative sea level of sufficient resolution to better estimate vertical ground displacements associated with the earthquake deformation cycle and reconstruct past sea-level variations at various temporal and spatial scales.
She uses a multiproxy approach (e.g., surface sampling, coring, GPR, CHIRP, micropaleontology, sedimentology, stratigraphy, and AMS 14C, 210Pb, 137Cs dating).
Ai Ning Loh, Ph.D.
Professor
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Dr. Loh is an isotope and organic geochemist. Her research answers questions related to the sources, cycling and transport of organic matter and nutrients in aquatic (marine, estuarine and riverine) environments. She also has current projects related to organic contaminants in aquatic environments.
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.
Ralph Mead, Ph.D.
Professor
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Dr. Mead and the Environmental Organic Geochemistry Laboratory (EOGL) study natural and anthropologically derived organic compounds in the environment at the land-ocean continuum.
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.
Jeremy R. Patterson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
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Dr. Jeremy Patterson is a physical hydrogeologist that pursues research aimed at managing diminishing groundwater supplies. He uses a combination of field experiments and numerical modeling to describe aquifer heterogeneity and explore how this heterogeneity impacts groundwater flow, groundwater storage, and transport phenomena.
His recent research projects have focused on the characterizing the flow properties of fractured bedrock, modeling hydrologic processes occurring within fractured bedrock, and geothermal energy development.
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:
- 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.
- To produce the climate data record (e.g., precipitation) from multiple satellite observations. This work is supported by NOAA.
