DENIN Attends World’s Largest Geosciences Conference

Dozens of DENIN collaborators recently attended the 2025 American Geophysical Union’s conference, held from December 15-19 in New Orleans, Louisiana. AGU gathers over 25,000 attendees from more than a hundred countries to foster visibility and coordination around research in the earth and space sciences.

Below is a list of DENIN staff, affiliates, and affiliate-advised students who presented research at the conference, expanding the reach of UD’s environmental projects:

 

Coastal Critical Zone Network

• Cindy Chen, “Controlling Drivers of Wave-Driven Ripple on Interfacial Fluid and Solute Exchange in Coastal Hyporheic Zone” (Talk)
• Cindy Chen, “Influence of Microtopography and Soil Heterogeneity on Salinization in Changing Coastal Environments” (Talk)
• Sam Clem & Matthew Henderson, “Communicating Climate with Communities: Evolving Communication Strategies in Times of Political and Environmental Change” (Poster)
• Marisa Field, College of Coastal Georgia, “Empowering Undergraduate Research Through LoRaWAN-Enabled Sensor Networks: A Coastal Salt Marsh Case Study from the FS3 Critical Zone Summer Program” (Poster)
• Tahmidur Rahman Junayed, “Salinity Dominates Moisture Content in Soil Water Potential at Marsh-Forest Boundaries” (Poster)
• Matt Kirwan, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, “Sea-level Driven Land Conversion Amplified by Coastal Agriculture” (Talk)
• Abigail McGraw, “Hydrogeologic Controls on the Position of the Marsh-Forest Boundary in the Mid-Atlantic” (Poster)
• Holly Michael, “The hidden role of groundwater in the functioning and migration of saltmarshes” (Poster)
• Robyn O’Halloran, “Disrupted Pathways: Stemflow Loss and Groundwater Biogeochemistry in Ghost Forests” (Talk)
• Donald Pesonen, Rutgers, “Geophysical Monitoring of Oak and Pine Trees Under Varying Mortality in a Marsh-Forest Upland Transect” (Poster)
• Danielle Pratt, “Untangling Dynamic Drivers of Salt Migration” (Poster)
• Matt Sirianni, East Carolina University, “You Can Lead a Horse to Water, but it Might be Salty: Monitoring Water Use by Feral Horses in a Changing Coastal Environment” (Poster)
• Chris Terra, Rutgers “EConflux: A Python Library for informing geophysical surveys using complementary electrical methods” (Poster)
• Chris Terra, Rutgers, “Does Soil Heterogeneity Promote Seasonal Changes in Salinity along Forested and Agricultural Marsh-to-Upland Transects?” (Talk)
• Claudia Zoccarato, “The Biophysical Foundation of Tidal Marshes: A focus on Soil-Root Interactions” (Talk)

Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering

• Austin K Farnum, “Representing Fast (Surface) and Slow (Subsurface) Threats to Below-Ground Water Infrastructure in Integrated Urban Coastal Hydrologic Modeling” (Poster)
• Paul Imhoff, “Digital Twins to Understand Methane Emissions From Landfills” (Poster)
• Tawsif Sultan Raaz, “Assessing Methane Oxidation and Significance of Aerobic Waste Degradation across Different Landfill Covers with Eddy Covariance Data” (Poster)

Department of Earth Sciences

• Ophelia Christoph, “Digging Deep into Subsurface Complexity: Integrating 2.5D Seismic Interpretation with Geospatial and Geotechnical Modeling on the Mid-Atlantic Shelf” (Poster)
• Catherine Hughes, “Substrate Distribution and Channel Morphology in the Delaware River Before and After USACE Main Channel Deepening Efforts (2013–2020)” (Poster)
• Romana Ibrahim, “Designing a Saltwater Intrusion Monitoring Network in Coastal Delaware: Identifying Vulnerable Areas and Addressing Critical Monitoring Gaps”
• Jim Pizzuto, “Nested, Spatially Distributed Annual River Channel Sediment Budgets Pinpoint Sediment Sources and Identify Downstream Sediment Transport Pathways” (Poster)
• Michael Powers, “Rock Glacier Motion and Subsurface Ice Structure in the Dry Andes of San Juan Province, Argentina” (Talk)

Department of Geography and Spatial Sciences

• Saleem Ali, “Developing Geoscience-based targets for Critical Minerals Policies” (Poster)
• Aarti Arora, “Rural labor out-migration’s impact on agriculture and the environment in the Global South” (Talk)
• Kyle Davis, “Assessing transitions between smallholder and commercial agriculture in Nigeria through automated field boundary segmentation” (Poster)
• Bhoktear Khan, “Assessing Economic Water Scarcity and Sustainable Irrigation Potential in Nigeria” (Talk)
• Delphis Levia, “Welding bark ecology and stemflow hydrodynamics for smarter, bark-contemplative green infrastructure” (Poster)
• Amaja Mack, “Linkages Between Climate Extremes, Cropland Expansion, and Deforestation in Sub-Saharan Africa” (Poster)
• Afia Sarwar, “The Role of Climate in Shaping US Cropland Shifting and Crop Switching” (Poster)
• John Uponi, “Overlooked potential for Energy Transition Mineral resources and research in Above-Ground Sources” (Talk)
• John Uponi, “The Role of Resilient Crops in Influencing Climate-Driven Deforestation in Nigeria” (Poster)

School of Marine Science and Policy

• Julia Greco, “Sand in Motion: Mapping Morphology and Beach Nourishment Response of Northern Assateague Island” (Poster)
• Grant Otto, “Mind the Gap: Innovative Mapping Techniques for the Ultra-Shallow Coastal Zone” (Poster)
• Sunita Shah Walter, “Direct observations a seafloor volcanic eruption starting 29th April 2025 on the East Pacific Rise at 9°50’N” (Poster)

Department of Plant and Soil Sciences

• Alex Huddell, “Do cover crops mitigate N2O and N2 losses? Exploring management and climatic drivers of N2O and N2 losses in temperate maize-soybean rotation” (Poster)
• Van Huong Le, “Long-term Ecological Studies Must Continue: Insights from a Dryland Transition Zone” (Talk)
• Matthew Sena, “Influence of Redox Conditions on Elemental Concentrations in Riparian Sediment and Groundwater” (Poster)

Water Science & Policy Program

• Bisesh Joshi, “Modeling Nitrogen Transformation Pathways and Their Hydro-biogeochemical Drivers in Reducing Riparian Zone Using PFLOTRAN” (Poster)
• Alexis Yaculak, “Microbial Community Composition of Ancient Hydric Soils and its Recovery in Contemporary Floodplain Restorations” (Poster)
• Rachel Zobel, “Hydrologic Modeling Meets Community Voices: Advancing GSI in Northeast Wilmington” (Poster)

Affiliates Outside UD

• Rodrigo Vargas, “Spatial Representativeness of MexFlux as a regional FLUXNET network” (Poster)