Department Seminar Series
Department Seminars will take place in Tate Hall room 105 on Thursdays at 4:00 p.m. Email announcements are sent out the Monday before the seminar. Seminars are open to the public! If you would like to be added to the seminar announcement list, please contact Kaleigh Swift at [email protected].
*denotes seminars that are closed to the public
Fall 2026
September 10*
Dr. Justin Revenaugh
Department Head, Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of Minnesota
Welcome to the 2026-2027 School year!
September 17
Dr. Andy Wickert
Associate Professor, Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of Minnesota
Alluvial river dynmaics
September 24
Dr. Reid Cooper
Rock-Atmosphere Reactions in the Context of Venus
October 1
Dr. Dani Or
Nevada Engineering Distinguished Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Nevada Reno and ETH Zurich
On the size distribution of soil bacterial communities and why it matters?
October 2 (Darcy Lecture - 10am B20)
Dr. Steve Loheide
Professor; Environmental Engineering & Science Associate Chair (CEE), Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Wisconsin - Madison
Groundwater Recharge Regimes are in Flux
October 8
No seminar
October 15
Dr. Allison Tune
Scientist, Cascade Climate
Building the evidence base for Carbon Dioxide Removal through a Critical Zone lens: Earth science for climate impact
October 22
Yifan Cheng
Assistant Professor, Department of Earth Sciences, State University of New York at Buffalo
Co-designing Earth System Models with Indigenous Communities: Reflection on Successes and Challenges
Abstract
Earth System Models (ESMs) are crucial for quantifying the impacts of climate change and extreme events across Earth’s interconnected systems and for supporting science-based adaptation and mitigation. While the major funding agencies and modeling community increasingly value broad community engagement, end users may not initially perceive models as useful for local planning. Co-designing models with end users fosters two-way learning: users better understand models and their outputs, while modelers gain insight into fine-scale local processes such as monitoring practices and management priorities. This presentation showcases two case studies where modelers and social scientists partnered with Indigenous community decision-makers to reflect their priorities in model design and application. In the Arctic Rivers Project, high-resolution climate and hydrology datasets for Alaska were developed with guidance from an Indigenous Advisory Council, using optimized, coupled land-atmosphere models. In the Mid-Klamath Project, we partnered with the Karuk Tribe's Department of Natural Resources to assess climate change and prescribed burning impacts on terrestrial hydrology in the Klamath River Basin. Together, these two case studies illustrate a gradient of community engagement (many vs. one), priorities (restoration vs. adaptation), geographic scales (sub-continental vs. watershed), and economic feasibility (large vs. small budgets), respectively, in the Arctic Rivers Project and Mid-Klamath Project. Drawing on these experiences, we introduce a four-level framework to guide model co-design and reflect on the successes and challenges of both projects. Our goal is to help researchers consider, compare, and prepare for co-design systematically and coherently across diverse modeling projects.
October 29
Dr. Kendra Murray
Associate Professor, Department of Geosciences, Idaho State University
TBD
November 5
Dr. Jeffrey Post
Mineralogist and Curator-in-Charge of Gems and Minerals, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian
TBD
November 12
Dr. John Spear
Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Colorado School of Mines
Life on the Edge of a Yellowstone Hotspring = Life on Early Earth
November 19
Dr. Alicia Marie Ruteledge
Assistant Professor, Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science, Northern Arizona University
Glacial alteration of Mars analog terrains: Secondary minerals as climate records
November 26
No Seminar - Thanksgiving Break
December 3
Dr. Anne Gothman
Professor of Environmental Studies and Physics, St. Olaf College
TBD
Spring 2027
January 21
January 28
February 4
February 11
February 18
February 25
March 4
March 11
No Seminar - Spring Break
March 18
March 25
April 1
April 8
April 15
April 22
April 29
Yifan Cheng
Assistant Professor, Department of Earth Sciences, State University of New York at Buffalo
Co-designing Earth System Models with Indigenous Communities: Reflection on Successes and Challenges
Tate Hall 105