Ryan Glaubke received his Ph.D. from Rutgers University before joining the Paleo² Lab in the Fall of 2024. He is broadly interested in reconstructing past ocean conditions from periods of Earth’s history that could serve as “natural analogues” to the rate and magnitude of modern climate change. At the University of Arizona, Ryan investigated whether the Indian Ocean supported an unobserved and potentially significant mode of climate variability during the mid-Pliocene warm period—a period approximately 3 million years ago that resembles Earth’s future climate. Together, Ryan hopes these lessons from the past will help inform our projections of future change. Ryan started as an assistant professor at The University of Miami (RSMAS) in 2026, after completing his postdoctoral stint at UA.

Personal interests: Hiking, surfing, soccer, music, and reading.

Email: glaubke@arizona.edu

Online presence: Bluesky, ResearchGate, Google Scholar

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 worked on the fate of the East India Coastal Current (EICC) during the Holocene Epoch and H1 event,. Ammoose completed her PhD in 2026.

Email: ammooseakj1@gmail.com

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. Maya began their Ph.D. research at the University of Southampton in 2025.

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.

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

Oliff worked as an undergraduate researcher in the Paleo² Lab for two years—working closely with Ph.D. student Alexandra O’Keefe—focusing on picking Pliocene-aged benthic and planktic foraminifera from North Pacific IODP sediments. Oliff began his Ph.D. at the SUNY Binghampton in 2026.

Samantha recently graduated from with a BS in Geoscience from the University of Arizona and joined the lab in January 2023.

Ainsley Carling is a senior undergraduate student in the Geosciences program at the University of Arizona. She joined the  Paleo² Lab in the Fall of 2024 and worked on stable isotopes and atmospheric dynamics of Tucson precipitation.

Daniel Conley, originally from Atlanta, Georgia, joined the lab in the fall of 2021 and focused on research in stable water isotopes and atmospheric dynamics in Tucson. He graduated with a degree in Environmental Studies in 2024.

Tyler joined the Paleo² Lab in the Fall of 2021 as an undergraduate sophomore; he is currently pursuing graduate research at Oregon State University. His work focused on studying foraminifera and on stable isotope and trace metal analysis of their shells. His research investigated hydrological/climatic behavior in the Northern Gulf of Mexico over the Holocene epoch.

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. She began her doctoral work at NIOZ, Netherlands in 2026.

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.

Benjamin was a staff member at the Paleo² Lab working on several aspects of fossils, rocks, and stable isotope geochemistry. Benjamin began his Ph.D. research at the College of Information Science, University of Arizona in 2026 August.

Dr. Vetter served as lab manager from 2019–2024 at the Paleo² Lab focusing on foraminfera, stable isotope mass spectrometry, and trace elemental ICP-OES geochemistry.

Email: lvetter@arizona.edu