The Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences Department is excited to introduce the participants of the new EXPLORE Program (Earth & PLanetary Opportunities in REsearch). Students will work with EEPS faculty or affiliates on research or experiential projects or internships, designed to enhance their knowledge of the field and understand the scientific challenges that we face today. Student projects can be tailored to suit student interests and may involve working in faculty labs, conducting field work, analyzing data sets of different types, or running numerical models of Earth and planetary processes.
Meet our 2025-26 EXPLORERS:
Oksana Arevalo - (Faculty mentor: Carrie Masiello)
Oksana is a rising junior majoring in Chemistry and minoring in Anthropology. She is interested in conservation efforts, improving local plant diversity, and exploring new methods to decrease global carbon emissions.
Project: Optimizing flash elemental analyzers to measure the percent carbon in biochar
Calla Doh - (Faculty mentor: Carrie Masiello)
Calla Doh is a freshman at Rice University from Northern Virginia. She is studying Environmental Science with a concentration in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and is minoring in Poverty, Justice, and Human Capabilities. She is interested in sustainable food systems transformation by bridging science and policy work related to sustainable agriculture, climate change mitigation, and global food security.
Project: Industrial applications of biochar for soil remediation
Benjamin Kwait-Gonchar - (Faculty mentor: Andre Izidoro)
Ben is a junior from Brooklyn, New York, majoring in Astrophysics and Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences. He is interested in studying astrobiology and planetary habitability as well as exploring analog environments to better understand processes on other worlds.
Project: Data requirements for testing the habitable zone theory
Jim Jin - (Faculty mentor: Sahar Bakhshian)
Jim is a sophomore majoring in Statistics from Hangzhou, China. My research interest lies primarily in data science & machine learning, energy systems, and resource chemistry.
Project: Predictive Modeling for Optimization of Heat and Lithium Co-Production in
Fractured Geothermal reservoirs
Nat Pujet - (Faculty mentor: Kirsten Siebach)
Nat Pujet is a junior from Boulder, Colorado, majoring in Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences with a Planetary Science specialization and minoring in Physics. Nat is interested in planetary habitability, outer solar system icy moons, and the formation and evolution of planetary systems.
Project: Effects of composition and grain size on laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy of mixed materials
Charlotte Raymond - (Faculty mentor: Mark Torres)
Charlotte Raymond is a sophomore intending to major in Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Science with a concentration in Planetary Science. She is interested in planetary habitability, astrobiology, and planetary cycles.
Project: Nature of planet-wide elemental cycles, e.g., water, carbon, and silica, and applications to astrobiology and planetary habitability
Seunggyu Shin - (Faculty mentor: Kirsten Siebach & Ellie Moreland)
Seunggyu Shin is a junior at Rice University from Utah studying Computer Science. He is interested in applications of computer science and space and planetary sciences, combining these areas through EEPS research.
Project: Developing compositional mixing models in software for processing geochemical data
Kemi Tytler - (Faculty mentor: Sahar Bakhshian)
Kemi a rising sophomore at Hanszen College pursuing a degree in Chemical Engineering, with interests in CO2 conversion, renewable energy, and environmental sustainability.
Project: Source-to-Sink Integrated Modeling of Carbon Capture and Storage
Jessica Xu - (Faculty mentor: Melodie French)
Jessica is an undergraduate student from Dallas, TX interested in resource extraction's chemical and geological foundations. She hopes to develop an understanding of environmental on human health impacts, specifically in consideration of how energy production contributes to pollution impacting various communities in the United States.
Project: Modeling fracture closing rates in geothermal energy systems
Former Explorers
Ainsley Ganti - (Faculty mentor: Rajdeep Dasgupta)
Ainsley Ganti worked on a thesis using high P-T experiments to study aubrite (meteorite) formation. Ainsley will start PhD program in planetary science at the University of Florida.
Evan Gebhart - (Faculty mentor: Sylvia Dee)
Evan worked on a project titled: Climate change impacts and modeling within the Mississippi River Basin.
Adam Leff - (Faculty mentor: Julia Morgan)
Adam Leff worked on a project titled: Analysis of 2018 earthquakes and eruption at Kilauea Volcano for natural disaster preparation.
Jeremy Lin - (Faculty mentor: Melodie French)
Jeremy Lin worked on a project titled: Constraining the role of mechanical heterogeneity in controlling megathrust seismogenic zones via local catalogs.
Valentina Osorio- (Faculty mentor: Mark Torres)
Valentina Osorio worked in EEPS and Chemistry on a thesis titled "Rainy with a Chance of Sea Salt: Sourcing the Sulfur in Houston’s Rainfall". Valentina is continuing her studies at CU Boulder to earn a PhD in Analytical, Environmental and Atmospheric Chemistry.
Kathryn Phung - (Faculty mentor: Carrie Masiello)
Kathryn Phung worked in Chemistry on a thesis titled "13C - NMR Analysis of Composts: Implications for Emerging Carbon Markets". Kathryn is currently finishing up an Masters in Public Health at University of Texas.
Isabel Wasserman - (Faculty mentor: Mark Torres and Sylvia Dee)
Isabel Wasserman worked on a project titled: Quantifying the impact of agricultural activity and nitrogenous fertilizers on weathering and atmospheric pCO2. Isabel will be working at the Saiers Lab at Yale School of the Environment doing research related to carbon removal from the atmosphere by enhanced weathering.
Malcolm Wigder - (Faculty mentor: Helge Gonnermann)
Malcolm Wigder worked on a project titled: Modeling the shallow hydrothermal system of the Cordón Caulle laccolith.
Marlo Wilcox- (Faculty mentor: Kirsten Siebach)
Marlo graduated in 2024 in Environmental Science with an Earth Science concentration, completing a thesis titled "Vikings, Volcanoes, and Satellites: An Analysis of Icelandic NDVI Trends and the Problem of Scale in Vegetation Remote Sensing". Marlo will continue this area of research during the 2024 summer in northern Sweden, collecting drone imagery of a thawing permafrost peatland and using it to leverage surface and subsurface ground measurements.
Megan Wright - (Faculty mentor: Carrie Masiello)
Megan Wright worked on a thesis titled: Organic chemistry of marine sinking particles is shaped by ecology and physical transport. Meagan will start a PhD program at the Jackson school of Geosciences at UT Austin and received a first year fellowship there under the SHIELD (Science for Hazards, Impact Evaluation, and Long-Term aDaptation) initiative.
Jeffrey Youngson- (Faculty mentor: Julia Morgan and Pat McGovern)
Jeffrey majored in Astrophysics while pursuing a minor in Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Science. His project was titled: Identifying and characterizing morphologic lineaments within and around the northern hemisphere of Mars as a test of impact-induced volcanism and tectonism. Jeffrey will take a gap year, part of which will be working in EEPS, then applying to graduate programs in astronomy.
Charlie Zhu- (Faculty mentor: Duncan Keller)
Charlie worked on a project titled: Linking textures to chemical data in deformed mantle xenoliths. Charlie will be exploring graduate school opportunities as well as careers in data science.