About Jocelyn

Welcome! My name is Jocelyn, and I work with Irina Overeem as a PhD student in Geology at the Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR). I study lake-terminating glacier ablation in Southeast Alaska using a combination of field work, numerical modeling, and remote sensing, with the goal to more accurately model frontal ablation at lake-terminating margins.

Or, using the 1000 most common words in the English language: I'm using field trips to cold places and pictures from space to learn about why ice in fresh water is getting smaller. What we learn from ice in fresh water might help us understand how ice in the sea will change, too.

I was born in Charleston, West Virginia and spent most of my childhood there until my family moved to Portland, Oregon in the early 2010’s. After graduating high school, I earned my B.A. in Geosciences at Wellesley College and completed an Honors thesis with members of the Bergmann Lab at MIT. After graduating in 2019, I took a gap year to attend the Juneau Icefield Research Program and work as a Laboratory Technician in the Bergmann Lab. In 2020, I enrolled as a graduate student in Geology at Caltech and earned my M.S. in Geology in 2023. At Caltech, I was a Team Member on both currently active Mars rover missions (Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity and Mars 2020 Perseverance) under the direction of John Grotzinger, and I worked with Michael Lamb to study suspended sediment flux on the Yukon River in Interior Alaska.

When I am not in the field, in the laboratory, or on the computer processing remote sensing data, you can find me hiking, camping, backpacking, cycling, (slowly) trail running, or skiing around Colorado. Of course, once I’m recovered from ACL surgery. At home, I am probably cooking, working on a sewing project, playing Mario Kart, or learning about the latest news and gear in the outdoor industry.