The 39th Annual Student Research Day was held from 8:30 AM to 5 PM on Friday, May 8, 2026, at the UH Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences in the SR1 Building on the main campus of the University of Houston.
The 2026 SRD organizing committee included the meeting chairperson Amberlee Enger (EAS MS student), Drs. Brandee Carlson and Paul Mann (EAS faculty members), Antonious Douglas (Assistant to the EAS Department Chair), and Jay Krishnan (EAS Systems Manager).
Fifteen University of Houston Department of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences (EAS) students were recognized from a group of 51 research talk and poster presentations. A panel of 33 volunteer judges included experts working with the Houston-area oil, gas, and environmental industry and members of the EAS faculty. The 12 EAS faculty judges and the 21 industry judges and their affiliations are listed below.
For oral presentations by BS students, first-place went to Rebekah Wells-Mourre for her talk on: “Integrating multispectral UAV and Sentinel-2 imagery to quantify suspended sediment dynamics and its ecological impacts in Texas coastal bays.”
For oral presentations by MS students, first-place went to Amberlee Enger for her talk on: “Using isotope geochemistry to constrain serpentinization and carbonation of modern ocean floor with ancient ties”, and second place went to Sarah Garcia for her talk on: “Inundation-desiccation dynamics regulate carbonate and sediment storage in a semi-arid, reservoir system.”
For oral presentations by PhD students, first-place went to Johanna Villagomez for her talk on: “GulfNet: Large-scale, nodal seismic deployment along the Texas-Louisiana coast.” For second place there was a tie between FNU Anshika for her talk on: “Investigation of phthalate emissions from incense sticks, scented candles, and perfume through a chamber experiment” and Karissa Vermillion for her talk on: “Extinction of Late Cretaceous magmatism during shallow subduction and Oligocene initiation of the San Andreas transform margin and rifting in the western San Gabriel Mountains, California.”
For poster presentations by BS students, first place went to Claudia Aramburu Tinoco for her poster on: “Monitoring the spatiotemporal variability of suspended sediment in Texas bays”, second place went to Madeline Tompson for her poster on: “An analog experiment to trace d18O and d13C evolution along an epikarst flow path”, and third place when to Cristina Lyon for her poster on: “The recorded relationship between a tie-channel and its floodplain.”
For poster presentations by MS students, first place went to Kyra Bennett for her poster on: “Random forest classification of California oils using molecular marker ratios”, second place went to Bilge Sasmaz for her poster on: “Development of a 1D mechanical Earth model and fracture analysis at the HFTS-1 site, Midland Basin”; and third place went to Celine Saidy for her poster on: “Mapping vegetation and erosion change at natural and restored dunes on Texas barrier islands.”
For poster presentations by PhD students, first place went to Jumoke Akinpelu for her poster on: “Crustal structure, tectonostratigraphy, and hydrocarbon potential of the Potiguar basin, Brazilian Equatorial margin”; second place went to Arman Abdipour for his poster on “Meteorological data assimilation for improving air quality modeling with WRF-Chem over the contiguous U.S. and Texas”; and third place went to Matthew McAllen for his poster on: “Regional crustal structure and Aptian source rock characterization of the Foz do Amazonas Basin, Brazilian Equatorial Margin.”
View the complete meeting program for SRD 2026 containing the abstracts of all 51 EAS student talk and poster presentations.
Following the conclusion of the student talks and poster session at 3 pm, Student Research Day featured a 35-minute keynote talk by newly hired, EAS assistant professor, Dr. Kunxiaojia (Tammy) Yuan, entitled: “Global Wetland Methane Emissions: From Science to Solutions.”
Dr. Tom Lapen, chair of the EAS department, who introduced the afternoon SRD awards event by summarizing the accomplishments of the EAS department over the past year. Dr. Lapen also eulogized Dr. Rosalie Maddocks who was a professor of micropaleontology at EAS from her hiring as an assistant professor in 1967 to her passing on April 15, 2026. Read more about Dr. Maddocks, her remarkable, 59-year career at EAS, and how to donate in her name to the EAS Ph.D. Graduate Student Endowment fund.
In addition to the talk and poster awards, an additional EAS undergrads and grads received a total of 68 awards for academic excellence based on their course grades and thesis-related conference talks and publications.
Dr. Lapen also presented the Outstanding Alumnus Award for 2025–2026 to Dr. Don van Nieuwenhuise, who was an EAS MS graduate from 1973–1977 and recently retired from UH as Director of the UH Professional Masters Program in geology and geophysics from 2002 to 2025.
Student Research Day concluded with a group photo of the entire EAS Department and a Happy Hour with alumni and friends convened at the Mucky Duck Pub from 5 to 7:30 PM.
Thanks to the 12 volunteer, EAS judges: Brandee Carlson, Peter Copeland, Sharon Cornelius, Jose Gorosabel, A. Nahid Hasan, Jingping Hu, Jin Park, Will Sager, Jinny Sisson, Ny Riavo Voarintsoa, Tianfan Yan, and Honghai Zhang.
Thanks to 21 volunteer, industry judges: Francisco Bolivar (Bedrock Ocean Exploration), Chuck Caughey (Noble Energy, retired), Beata Czader (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality), Catherine Donohue (Murphy Oil), Vsevolod Egorov (GeoExpera), Ebrahim Eslami (Air Quality-Houston-Galveston Area Council), Igor Faoro (New England Research Inc.), Adam Goss (CNOOC), Ken Green (ExxonMobil, retired), Fiona Jiang (Ramboll), Bruna Lyra (Viridien), Sumit Mukherjee (ONGC Videsh, Ltd.), Vincent Polignano (Air Quality-Houston-Galveston Area Council), Franklin Ruiz (Sinopec-Tech Houston), Bhavik Shah (Consultant), Abhilash Srungarapati (Engineer, City of Houston), Madeline Statkewicz (Air Quality-Houston-Galveston Area Council), Ana Vielma (Petricore), Zhefeng Wei (Consultant), and Shawn Wright (Chevron).