People

Dr. Yige Zhang, Associate Professor

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• Principle Investigator (PI)
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We are always looking for motivated folks to join us as graduate students or postdocs. Please email Dr. Zhang to discuss details.

Noura Randle, Graduate Student

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Noura obtained her BS degree from Eckert College in 2008. Her research interest lies in reconstructing paleoclimate using multiple proxies. Her past projects include surveying the Quaternary hydrological changes in the Equatorial Pacific. Her current project is centered on the regional climate history of the North Pacific Ocean during the Oligocene and Miocene.

Ronnakrit “Ronnie” Rattanasriampaipong, Doctoral Candidate

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CV | Personal Website | Departmental Website

Born and raised in a concrete jungle like Bangkok, Thailand, two ways that Ronnie can learn about our Planet Earth and the world around him are either (1) watching nature documentaries narrated by Sir David Attenborough or (2) become an earth investigator (a geologist) himself. He chooses both! He got a B.Sc. in Geology and an M.Sc. in Petroleum geosciences from Chulalongkorn University.

As a recipient of the Fulbright Thai Graduate Scholarship, Ronnie is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Oceanography at Texas A&M University. He is working with Dr. Yige Zhang on an investigation of Cenozoic/Mesozoic climate history and using archaeal lipid biomarkers (GDGTs and alkenones) from IODP deep-sea sediments. His research is selected to be supported by the 2021-22 Schlanger Fellowship.

Besides research, I am an amateur ultra-distance runner. So, it might be a chance that I am running past someone around town!

Xiaoqing Liu, PhD, 2017–2022

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Current Position (2022–): EAPS Postdoctoral Research Associate (Climate Dynamics Prediction Laboratory), Purdue University

Xiaoqing earned her BS from China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) in 2013, followed by an MS from Tongji University in 2016. She has extensive research experience with foraminifera in the South China Sea. Her current project examines the temperature evolution of the warmest surface water body – the Indo-Pacific warm pool during the Neogene, using newly obtained samples from IODP Expedition 363.

Xiaoqing’s PhD dissertation focuses on reconstructing past SST history of the West Pacific Warm Pool (WPWP), the warmest end-member of the global ocean. Her new SST records of the WPWP were then used to quantify the Pacific high latitude amplification over the past 10 million years. Xiaoqing and her co-authors found that the high-latitude amplification factor—a number that tells us how much SST at high latitudes would increase when SST in the tropics increase by 1°C—in the Pacific is persistent throughout the investigation period. This finding is now published in Nature Communications.

Bumsoo Kim, PhD, 2017–2022

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Current Position (2022–): Postdoctoral Research Associate (Geochemical and Environmental Research Group), Texas A&M University

Bumsoo was awarded a BS from Seoul National University in 2014, followed by an MS in 2016. He is interested in the global carbon cycle and isotopic approaches to study carbon cycling. His past project involves radiocarbon measurements and field work in the Southern Ocean. His current project is examining the climate forcing of methane hydrate dissociation in Earth’s geological history.

Bumsoo’s PhD dissertation focuses on improving our understand of the methane hydrate stability in past oceans and the impact of the potential methane release to regional and global climates. He uses lipid biomarkers and stable isotopes of carbonate nodules from marine sediments deposited during the Oligocene–Miocene Boundary to investigate the past methane dissociation event associated with the global climate and sea level changes. His work is now published in Nature Geoscience.

Daianne Höfig, MS in Oceanography, 2018–2021

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Current Position (2021–): Ph.D. student, Johnston Lab, Harvard University

Daianne’s master’s thesis investigated annually-resolved sediments in the classic Clarkia lacustrine deposits (Idaho, USA) during the middle Miocene Climate Optimum. The findings of her work offer a unique opportunity to study climate change in unprecedented detail during global warming associated with carbon-cycle perturbations. Her thesis is published in Geology.

Kimberly Sayprasith, Undergraduate student

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Kimberly is an Environmental Geoscience Senior with a double minor in Meteorology and Mathematics. she has been involved in a variety of labs in mycotoxicology, oceanography, biology, and atmospheric sciences.

She finished her thesis project about the Kuroshio Current pathway during the Middle to Late Miocene using the TEX86 proxy under the guidance of Noura Randle as her mentor.   

      I am so glad to have been part of an amazingly welcoming and diverse group in Zhang’s lab. They helped pave the way to my passion for ocean currents and their effect on climate, thus becoming my subject of interest for graduate school. With their helpful feedback on my poster presentation, I was able to get 2nd place for my poster presentation at the 16th Annual Pathways Student Research Symposium. I am excited to go to graduate school and be part of a team similar to theirs!

Kimberly Sayprasith, Environmental Geosciences B.S., TAMU, 2018-2021