GSA Connects 2026 faculty, staff, and student presentations

8:05 AM MDT
Presenter: Eugene Barnes
Ohio State Co-authors: Mark A. Kleffner
Title: Preliminary Report on Conodont Biostratigraphy of the Silurian Estill Shale at Measley Ridge in Southern Ohio (Abstract)
Location: Room 102 (Colorado CC)
Session: 14-1, Microfossil Con Queso – Conodont Questions of Importance – North American Pander Society Meeting

8:50 AM MDT
Presenter: Ryan Winston (Food, Agricultural, and Biological Engineering)
Ohio State Co-authors: Andrew Tirpak (Food, Agricultural, and Biological Engineering)
Title: Investigating Retrofits to Improve Water Quality and Reduce Streambank Erosion in Aging Flood Control Basins in Northeast Ohio (Abstract)
Location: Room 108 (Colorado CC)
Session: 20-4, Riverscapes in transition: Advances in fluvial geomorphology, sediment transport, deposition, river health, and urban rivers (Part I)

9:00 AM MDT
Presenter: Chloe Smith
Ohio State Co-authors: Oliver McLellan, Jill Leonard-Pingel
Title: A Preliminary Analysis of Modern and Historic Diatom Assemblages from Buckeye Lake, Ohio, USA (Abstract)
Location: Room 110 (Colorado CC)
Session: 22-4, Investigating Earth’s Past, Present, and Future with Continental Scientific Drilling

1:30 PM - 3:30 PM MDT
Session Chair: Claire A. Mondro
Session: T161. Boxwork and Fracture Halos: Changes in mineralogy and erosion resistance around fracture features on Earth, Mars, and across the Solar System

2:00 PM - 4:00 PM MDT
Presenter: Rowan Martindale
Ohio State Co-authors: Benanzea Ndematebem
Title: GEOPAths GO Jamaica 2026: Fostering a Learning Ecosystem for Interdisciplinary Earth Scientists through Service Learning and Conservation in Jamaica (Abstract)
Location: Hall F (Poster Hall) (Colorado CC)
Session: 31-1, Environmental Geochemistry and Health (Posters)

2:00 PM - 4:00 PM MDT
Presenter: Jill Leonard-Pingel
Title: Entrepreneurially Minded Learning in Earth Science Education: Curiosity, Connections, and Creating Value in the Classroom (Abstract)
Location: Hall F (Poster Hall) (Colorado CC)
Session: 39-8, Learning to be a Geoscientist: Professional Exposure, Agency, and Transferable Skills in Undergraduate Education (Posters)

2:00 PM - 4:00 PM MDT
Presenter: Claire Loeffler
Ohio State Co-authors: Bryan Mark
Title: Hydrochemical Evolution of Glacier-Fed Watersheds in the Cordillera Blanca, Peru (Abstract)
Location: Hall F (Poster Hall) (Colorado CC)
Session: 42-16, A Showcase of Undergraduate Research in Hydrogeology (Posters)

2:00 PM - 4:00 PM MDT
Presenter: Connor Hopps
Ohio State Co-authors: Lauryn White, Jill Leonard-Pingel
Title: From Coppice to Colonization: A 6,000-Year Pollen Record of Vegetation Change at Watling’s Blue Hole, San Salvador Island, The Bahamas (Abstract)
Location: Hall F (Poster Hall) (Colorado CC)
Session: 44-12, Recent Advances and New Voices in Marine and Coastal Geoscience (Posters)

5:15 PM MDT
Presenter: Carmi Thompson
Ohio State Co-authors: Morgan Leeson, Jill Leonard-Pingel
Title: Beyond “more data:” Natural history specimens for methods validation and student training (Abstract)
Location: Room 103 (Colorado CC)
Session: 79-12, New approaches to old fossil collections

5:15 PM MDT
Presenter: Naushin Fatima
Ohio State Co-authors: Mohammad Ariful Islam Sumon (Food Science and Technology), Ozeas Costa
Title: Transforming Jackfruit Waste into a Sustainable Medium to Enhance Biomass Production and Astaxanthin Accumulation in the Green Microalga Desmodesmus sp. (Abstract)
Location: Room 105 (Colorado CC)
Session: 81-15, New Advances in Geomicrobiology

8:00 AM - 12:00 PM MDT
Session Chair: W. Berry Lyons
Session: T59. International Collaborations in the Geosciences: Celebrating Science Without Borders

2:00 PM - 4:00 PM MDT
Presenter: Lauryn White
Ohio State Co-authors: Connor Hopps, Jill Leonard-Pingel
Title: Fern Spores From Inland Lake Sediment Core Indicate Floral Change at Poisonwood Blue Hole, New Providence, The Bahamas (Abstract)
Location: Hall F (Poster Hall) (Colorado CC)
Session: 129-64, 38th Annual Undergraduate Research Exhibition Sponsored by Sigma Gamma Epsilon

2:00 PM - 4:00 PM MDT
Presenter: Patricia Kelley
Ohio State Co-authors: Jill Leonard-Pingel
Title: Pathways to Careers in Conservation Paleobiology: A New Online Resource for Students, Educators, and Mentors (Abstract)
Location: Hall F (Poster Hall) (Colorado CC)
Session: 132-8, Diversifying Geoscience Education Across the Academic Playing Field: Using Creative Methods to Foster the Current and Next Generations of Geoscience Professionals (Posters)

2:00 PM - 4:00 PM MDT
Presenter: Ruyu Yan
Ohio State Co-authors: W. Ashley Griffith
Title: Understanding the impact of varying hydrothermal alteration around preexisting structures on local fault zone evolution and reactivation (Abstract)
Location: Hall F (Poster Hall) (Colorado CC)
Session: 146-2, Fault zones and fluid flow, from outcrops to algorithms (Posters)

5:10 PM MDT
Presenter: Connor Hopps
Ohio State Co-authors: Lauryn White, Jacob Goodson (Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology), Jill Leonard-Pingel
Title: Ponds, Pines, and People: 6500-Year Record of a Wetland Floral Community from Poisonwood Blue Hole, New Providence, The Bahamas (Abstract)
Location: Bluebird Ballroom 3A (Colorado CC)
Session: 160-14, Mass extinctions and the current biodiversity crisis: Lessons from the past to inform the future (Part II)

9:00 AM - 11:00 AM MDT
Presenter: René Castillo
Ohio State Co-authors: Brendan Crowell
Title: Old Cores, New Questions: Utilizing Data Visualization to Analyze Legacy Datasets (Abstract)
Location: Hall F (Poster Hall) (Colorado CC)
Session: 233-4, Revisiting the archives: New discoveries from existing core collections (Posters)

9:00 AM - 11:00 AM MDT
Presenter: Rebecca DeKoster
Ohio State Co-authors: Jill Leonard-Pingel
Title: Decreased mollusk predation in lower-productivity waters of the Caribbean side of the Isthmus of Panama (Abstract)
Location: Hall F (Poster Hall) (Colorado CC)
Session: 238-2, Progress in paleoecology: reconstructing life-history, behavior, physiology, and ecological interactions in the fossil record (Posters)

9:00 AM - 11:00 AM MDT
Presenter: Hannah McCoy
Ohio State Co-authors: Morgan Leeson, Carmi Thompson, Jill Leonard-Pingel
Title: Exploring Body Size, Predation Pressure, and Shell Biomass in Central America’s Neogene Corbulidae Community Following the Formation of the Isthmus of Panama (Abstract)
Location: Hall F (Poster Hall) (Colorado CC)
Session: 238-4, Progress in paleoecology: reconstructing life-history, behavior, physiology, and ecological interactions in the fossil record (Posters)

1:30 PM - 5:30 PM MDT
Session Chair: Claire Mondro
Session: T170. The G. K. Gilbert Award Session Honoring Dr. Ken Edgett: Geological Insights Through Imaging of Our Solar System Worlds

2:00 PM - 4:00 PM MDT
Presenter: Kayleigh Phillips
Ohio State Co-authors: Matthew R. Saltzman
Title: Something Calcareous this Way Comes: Role of Mineralogy and Diagenesis in the Silurian-Devonian Klonk δ¹³C Event (Abstract)
Location: Hall F (Poster Hall) (Colorado CC)
Session: 218-6, What is old is new again: Using traditional and novel geochemical proxies to reconstruct past environments and their links to changes in the Phanerozoic biosphere (Posters)

8:00 AM - 10:00 AM MDT
Session Chair: Abe Springer
Session: T118. The State of Headwaters

8:35 AM MDT
Presenter: Emerald Goldbaum
Ohio State Co-authors: Kathy Welch, Aaron Wilson (Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center), Melisa Diaz
Title: Summer Water Pollution Trends of an Urban Ohio Stream (Abstract)
Location: Room 113 (Colorado CC)
Session: 306-3, Coupled Redox–Organic Interactions in the Critical Zone: From Pore Scale Reactions to Landscape Scale Processes

9:00 AM - 11:00 AM MDT
Presenter: René Castillo
Ohio State Co-authors: Jill Leonard-Pingel, Casey Saup
Title: The Indigenous Science Toolbox: Using the Medicine Wheel to Teach Geoscience Through Two-Eyed Seeing (Abstract)
Location: Hall F (Poster Hall) (Colorado CC)
Session: 314-3, Geoscience Education (Posters)

9:00 AM - 11:00 AM MDT
Presenter: Carmi Thompson
Ohio State Co-authors: Jill Leonard-Pingel
Title: Peering into the protoconch: a survey of Nassarius in the Neogene Caribbean (Abstract)
Location: Hall F (Poster Hall) (Colorado CC)
Session: 323-3, Paleontology, Diversity, Extinction, Origination (Posters)

9:00 AM - 11:00 AM MDT
Presenter: Morgan Leeson
Ohio State Co-authors: Carmi Thompson, Jill Leonard-Pingel
Title: A Tale of Two Clams: Investigating Body Size Changes in Glycymerididae and Lucinidae from the Caribbean Neogene (Abstract)
Location: Hall F (Poster Hall) (Colorado CC)
Session: 326-11, Paleontology, Phylogenetic/Morphological Patterns (Posters)

1:45 PM MDT
Presenter: Cole Edwards
Ohio State Co-authors: Matthew R. Saltzman
Title: The challenge of telling geologic time in the aftermath of the greatest mass extinction on the planet: Using carbon and strontium isotopes to refine age estimates of the Lower Thaynes Formation (Early Triassic) in the Great Basin region, western USA (Abstract)
Location: Room 107 (Colorado CC)
Session: 354-2, What is old is new again: Using traditional and novel geochemical proxies to reconstruct past environments and their links to changes in the Phanerozoic biosphere (Part II)

3:05 PM MDT
Presenter: Ryan Winston (Food, Agricultural, and Biological Engineering)
Ohio State Co-authors: Isabelle Hamby (Food, Agricultural, and Biological Engineering), Joey Smith (Food, Agricultural, and Biological Engineering), Andrew Tirpak (Food, Agricultural, and Biological Engineering)
Title: Exploring Impacts of Groundwater Interactions on Urban Stormwater Control Measure Performance (Abstract)
Location: Room 112 (Colorado CC)
Session: 356-6, Urban groundwater and geochemistry