Our Group
PALEO² LAB
Originally from Bengaluru, India, Kaustubh joined the Department of Geosciences as an assistant professor in Fall 2019 after a postdoctoral fellowship at Brown University. Prior to that, Kaustubh was at the University of Texas at Austin where he completed his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees; he also has a B.Tech degree in Chemical Engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Karnataka.
Research Interests: paleoceanographic dynamics, foraminiferal geochemistry, monsoons, ENSO, marine paleoecology
Personal Interests: birding, heavy music, photography
Email: kaustubh@arizona.edu
Aniket Dhar is a second year PhD student broadly interested in using geochemistry and mineralogy in carbonate archives like cave calcite formations (speleothems/ stalagmites) to reconstruct past and observed climatic trends. His current research work is focused on reconstructing the last 500 years of southern Indian hydroclimate changes by analyzing the stable isotopic (δ18O and δ13C) composition in a speleothem from southern India. Additionally, Aniket is interested in understanding the kinetics of calcite precipitation and dissolution in karst systems and the chemical exchange during the growth of speleothems using the mineralogy and the trace element (Mg/Ca, Sr/Ca, Ba/Ca) composition of stalagmites.
Alexandra is a first-year M.S. student in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Arizona and joined Dr. Thirumalai’s lab in the Fall of 2023. She is originally from upstate New York and received her BS degree in Atmospheric Science from SUNY Albany. Currently, Alexandra works with stable isotope measurements on foraminifera to reconstruct past climate regimes and variability.
Research Interests: Paleoclimate/Paleoceanography, Stable Isotope Geochemistry, ENSO and other large-scale climate dynamics
Email: aokeefe@arizona.edu
Ammoose is a third-year Ph.D. Scholar from the Central University of Kerala, India. She joined Dr. Thirumalai's Lab in Fall 2022 as a Fulbright-Kalam Climate Fellow. Her doctoral research mainly focuses on the paleoceanographic investigations of sediments from the Bay of Bengal using planktic foraminifera as a proxy. At the University of Arizona, she will be working on the fate of the East India Coastal Current (EICC) during the Holocene Epoch and H1 event, correlating with excessively strong and weak phases of ISM variability.
Email: ammooseakj1@gmail.com
Natalia is a Ph.D. student at the University of Vigo, advised by Drs. Gianluca Marino & Kaustubh Thirumalai. Natalia is interested in modeling the impacts of bioturbation on foraminiferal datasets, individual foraminiferal analyses, and ocean-atmosphere dynamics of the tropical Indian Ocean.
Email: nbienzobasmontavez@gmail.com
Tyler is a senior undergraduate from St. Louis who joined Dr. Thirumalai's paleoclimatology lab in the Fall of 2021. His work in the lab delves into studying foraminifera using geochemical techniques such as stable isotope and trace metal analysis. His current research aims at investigating hydrological/climatic behavior in the Northern Gulf of Mexico over the Holocene epoch.
Daniel Conley, originally from Atlanta, Georgia, is an undergraduate student in the Geosciences program at the University of Arizona. He joined doctor Thirumalai’s lab in the fall of 2021 and is researching stable water isotopes and atmospheric dynamics.
Hayley McKenley is an undergraduate student in the Geosciences program at the University of Arizona. She joined the lab in the summer of 2022 to study benthic foraminifera.
Email: hmckenley2011@arizona.edu
Maya completed her MS in the Paleo² Lab in 2022, working on Arctic Ocean foraminifera and using their assemblages and geochemistry to understand paleoceanographic variability. Before that, they obtained their B.S. at the University of Buffalo.
Valerie joined the Thirumalai Lab at University of Arizona for her M.S. in Fall 2020, which she completed in 2022. Before that she obtained her B.S. in geosciences at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her research in the Paleo² Lab was methods-based and focused on developing techniques to measure small carbonate samples using the Kiel IV Carbonate Device and the MAT253+ isotope ratio mass spectrometer in the Paleo² Lab.
Emily joined the lab as an undergraduate researcher in the Spring of 2020. She graduated with a degree in Geoscience and a minor in Environmental Hydrology in 2022. Her project focused on foraminiferal assemblage variability and geochemistry in the Gulf of Mexico across the Younger Dryas, a cold period during the last deglaciation. In the future, she plans to continue researching marine ecology and paleoclimatology. She is currently a graduate student at North Carolina State University.
Serena joined the Thirumalai lab as a UA undergraduate in 2019 and is now pursuing her Ph.D. at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. She received her BS in environmental science from the University of Arizona in May 2020. Her research in the Thirumalai Lab focused on using planktic foraminifera from the Bay of Bengal to investigate the relationship between paleomonsoon dynamics and faunal abundance across the deglaciation.
