Travel back in time several millennia with paleoclimatologist Dr. Gerry Rustic to look at how the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) weather pattern has shaped both the landscape and the people of our entire planet and, more specifically, the American Southwest. Then, fast-forward to 1919 and the formation of the Grand Canyon as a National Park. Dr. Laurel Brierly will discuss how the public intersects with the landscape and conservation/preservation at the Grand Canyon, as well as her role in providing stewardship and inspiration as a seasonal park ranger.
Doors open 7pm, Event begins 7:30pm
RSVP for FREE below!
This event is 21+
Dr. Laurel Brierly
For the past few years, Laurel Brierly has worked as a seasonal Park Ranger for the National Park Service at Grand Canyon National Park. She has a BS from Carnegie Mellon University, an MA from Northeastern University, and a PhD from the University of Leicester.
Dr. Gerald Rustic
How is it possible that a change in the surface temperature of the ocean off the coast of Peru can impact climate across the globe?
Paleoceanographer and paleoclimatologist Dr. Gerald Rustic is an Assistant Professor of Geology at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey. He received his PhD in Earth and Environmental Science in 2015 from the CUNY Graduate Center in New York, where he studied ENSO change over the last 1000 years. He did his postdoctoral work at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York, investigating ENSO change over the glacial and interglacial cycles of the last 300,000 years. He studies ENSO using the geochemistry of the shells of microscopic plankton called foraminifera, and spends a lot of time looking through a microscope sorting shells the size of a grain of sand with a very fine paintbrush. From the chemistry of these tiniest of things he reconstructs past climate states and infers large-scale changes in ENSO activity. Dr. Rustic was a New Yorker for the better part of 15 years, living in Brooklyn and playing in a band that shared the stage with a lot of people you’ve heard of. He now lives in Philadelphia with his dog, Max, a border collie who is the brains of the operation.