Graduate Update: Sarah Wells-Moran (’18)

We recently heard from 2018 CHS/MST grad Sarah Wells-Moran over the break who excitedly reported that she was able to present her work in person at the American Geophysical Union fall conference held in New Orleans from December 13th through the 17th.  This was her first in person, collegiate presentation given the disruptions from Covid. What’s the focus of her work, you ask? Here’s what she had to say:

“My research is on ice! I’m specifically trying to find the tensile strength of ice on Antarctic ice shelves through remote sensing imagery. I spent a couple of weeks manually tracing all the fractures I could see on optical imagery through QGIS. Then I calculated stress from surface temperature and ice velocity data, and mapped out principal stress space to create a yield envelope. The tensile strength I calculate can then be put into ice flow models, which can potentially help predict where ice will fracture next, and can be used for sea level rise models in regards to iceberg calving. This summer I’ll be up in the Juneau Ice fields for two months hopefully getting some field data! I’m also hoping to go to Antarctica some day.”

Wells-Moran attends Wellesley College where she double majors in physics and geosciences. She is slated to graduate in December of 2022.  After graduation, she plans on pursuing a PhD in the field of glaciology, hopefully starting grad school in fall of 2023. Thanks for the update, Sarah … Good Luck!

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