Archie Creech is an Environmental Science major at the University of Alabama. Outside of school, Archie works at the Geological Survey of Alabama, where he works in the Hydrologic division as part of the Statewide Groundwater Assessment program. He also worked as an intern for the North River Watershed, a nonprofit that promotes water sustainability and environmental awareness in the North River Watershed north of Tuscaloosa, AL. Archie is interested in water resources, especially quantity, and how humans generally interact with the environment around them. In the future, he hopes to work in environmental policy and law and work to facilitate science communication among the scientific community, policymakers, and the public.

Kalev Hantsoo earned his bachelor's degree in Geology from the University of Maryland. His undergraduate thesis focused on the feedback effects between ocean chemistry and animal evolution in the early Cambrian Period. The project included field work with a team of paleontologists and geochemists at the official Ediacaran-Cambrian boundary, located on the coast of Newfoundland. At AGI, Kalev is researching the economic prospects of carbon capture technology and examining how western states are responding to the ongoing drought. After his internship, Kalev begins graduate work at Penn State, where he will study carbon cycling and climate change in the geologic past.

Piper Lewis received her undergraduate degree in Geosciences from Earlham College. As an undergraduate she worked on the Early Farming in Dalmatia project performing geochemical analysis of early agricultural archeology sites. She also had the honor of assisting in scientific research on the USCGC Healy, a Coast Guard icebreaker in the Arctic Ocean. Before interning at AGI, Piper worked as a geosciences interpreter and podcast developer at Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming. She enjoys narrating audiobooks and is an aspiring novelist. She is interested in marine and environmental sciences, and hopes to eventually work in science and policy communications.

Peri Sasnett earned her bachelor’s degree in Earth Science from Columbia University with a minor in American History. She completed her Master’s in Geology at the University of Canterbury, focusing on active tectonics, while on a Fulbright fellowship to New Zealand. Since then, she has been an interpretive geologist for the National Park Service in the Grand Canyon and Grand Canyon National Parks through the GeoCorps program. She has worked to inspire curiosity and respect for science within the general public, and to connect park visitors with their public lands through a deeper understanding of the processes that have shaped those landscapes. She is currently a guest scientist in Yosemite National Park, and she hopes to continue to combine her interests in science policy and natural hazards.

Zachary Schagrin is currently working towards a Master’s degree in Geosciences at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on developing a chemostratigraphy of the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania, using radiation as a proxy for natural gas levels. Some of his other research interests include ultramafic petrology and serpentine soils. Zachary also completed his undergraduate degree at West Chester University, earning a Bachelor’s in Political Science with a concentration in Public Policy and a minor in Geology. Here, he examined the use of the filibuster in the United States Senate. He is originally from Levittown, PA.

Lily Strelich is a Geoscience Policy Intern with the American Geosciences Institute. She graduated in May 2014 with a Bachelor’s degree in Geology from Occidental College. As an undergraduate, she volunteered with the National Institute of Archaeology in Bulgaria, and studied environmental policy in Berlin. She earned academic distinction for her senior thesis, written on exhumation and uplift in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, where she attended field camp. Lily’s research interests include oceanography, hazard mitigation, unconventional resources, and Arctic geopolitics. She plans to continue promoting the geosciences as a science writer. She is originally from Santa Barbara, California.

Scott Miller graduated in May 2013 with a bachelor’s degree in Geology from Appalachian State University. During his undergraduate career Scott was able to map the Sevier Orogeny and resulting Inner Cretaceous Seaway, the historic shorelines of Lake Bonneville, and the two most recent Quaternary glacial retreats in the Ruby Mountains, Nevada.  Before interning at AGI, Scott curated mud cores at the Antarctic Marine Geology Research Facility at Florida State University. His research interests include geologic hazard mitigation and geothermal energy production.

Sophia Ford has a bachelor’s degree in Geology from Kansas State University. Her undergraduate research focused on groundwater contamination from naturally occurring arsenic in the Bengal Delta of India. As an undergraduate she worked on a collaborative project with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and Kansas State to remediate groundwater that had been contaminated from a fertilizer spill. Both research experiences strengthened her desire to understand geoscience policy. Sophia currently works as an Assistant Scientist at HydroGeoLogic in Kansas City, Missouri, and plans to enter the Peace Corps in the spring of 2015.