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Glaciologist 2025 ESR-SI mentor |
The 2025 iteration of the Earth and Space Research Summer Institute (ESR-SI) ran in June and July of 2025, with a focus on satellite data and the Antarctic Ice Sheet. I had seen students in this program share their creative research several times over the years, but this was my first time being involved in the program. I mentored four students with the support of Dr. Michael Town, a research scientist and Vice President of ESR who started this program as the Lakeside Summer Research Institute at Seattle’s Lakeside School. It was very energizing and fulfilling for me to work with high school students who were enthusiastic about getting a realistic taste of the research process.
I am a glaciologist, and I specialize in using satellite data to study how glaciers and the polar ice sheets are changing. I grew up in the foothills of the Cascades, but I can’t claim to have been initially drawn to this research by our dramatic alpine glaciers – my gateway to glaciology was working at an ice cream shop in high school! That experience uniquely qualified me for a college job with long hours working in a walk-in freezer to measure properties of sea ice. From there I sampled several other areas of geoscience research until I landed on studying Earth’s icy sentinels of climate change with cutting-edge satellite observations. I believe that there is a lot of value in trying many different things early in your education and career so that you can learn multiple approaches to framing questions and solving problems, whether in research or otherwise. In my case, I could share with the ESR-SI students my expertise in satellite remote sensing and working with large glacier and climate data products, as well as my familiarity with how scientists use field work, experiments, and numerical modeling to investigate questions in glaciology and other earth science fields.
For the 2025 ESR-SI, we used ice sheet height data from NASA’s ICESat-2 satellite to study the area around Troll, a Norwegian station in Antarctica where Dr. Town collaborates on polar research. From this basic framework, each student developed their own research questions, bringing in information from other satellites and climate models to investigate ice sheet changes around Troll. Some students explored the potential relationships between ice sheet height change and variables like ice velocity and surface albedo. Others studied variability in height change over time, to identify hot spots of change to inform station operations and to determine how well those observations matched predictions from a NASA model. The students learned to find, process, and analyze data, and how to consider alternate explanations for their findings to avoid coming to a predetermined conclusion. I loved seeing the students begin to take ownership of their projects and come up with their own ideas for next steps. After an intense week of data analysis, the students worked on clearly communicating their work to different audiences, and practiced giving constructive peer feedback throughout in order to refine their messages. They created research posters and presented them to the UW Glaciology group in a lively poster session. Walking around the room and listening to the students engage with other glacier researchers, thoughtfully discussing new ideas and answering their questions, was one of my favorite parts of the program! They wrapped up the program by writing blog posts about their experience – hear it in their own words!
2025 ESR-SI Student Blog Posts:
| Ada C | On a warm July day in Seattle, I wasn’t thinking about the heat outside. Instead, my mind was on the sunlight reflected thousands of miles away off the surface of Antarctica. I was investigating a deceptively simple question: how do seasonal changes in albedo affect surface height changes in ice sheets near Troll Station? … READ MORE |
| Varun C | Before the ESR program, glaciers had never crossed my mind, much less had I imagined I would spend a whole summer studying them. This program showed me just how fascinating they could be and just how many interesting processes they are affected by… READ MORE |
| Alex L | This summer at the Earth Science Research Institute, I dove into the critical work of understanding Antarctica’s changing ice. My project focused on the complex landscape around Troll Research Station… READ MORE |
| Sri S | When you think of Antarctica and the dangers associated with it, people tend to only think of the brutal weather. However, the risks don’t stop there; many of the greatest dangers come from what lies beneath the icy landscape. At places like Troll Station…READ MORE |