Three Ph.D. graduates from the same Rice University research group have won prestigious postdoctoral fellowships from the National Science Foundation's Division of Earth Sciences.
Competition is fierce for the prestigious fellowships, which provide two years of salary and research support at an institution of the graduate's choosing. The hat trick by Rice's Brandee Carlson, Tian Dong and Andrew Moodie is all the more impressive considering that the agency usually awards no more than 10 of the fellowships each year.
"I could not be more proud of them," said Jeff Nittrouer, assistant professor of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences and primary doctoral adviser to the three. "Rice's motto is 'Unconventional Wisdom,' and when I view the accomplishments of these students, I can't help but applaud their unconventional generosity, humility and determination."
Carlson will work Irina Overeem of the University of Colorado Boulder to study the impact of varying sediment supply on Arctic delta-front transport processes. Dong will work with the University of Texas at Austin's Timothy Goudge to use distributions of channel geometry and channel belt properties to distinguish meandering and braided fluvial deposits in the rock record, and Moodie will work with Stanford University's Jef Caers and UT Austin's Paola Passalacqua to quantify heterogeneity in stratigraphy across scales.