Dr. Carrie Bottenberg

Assistant Professor and Director of Geotechnologies - Geosciences

GEOL 4403 - H1: Principles of GIS

GEOL 4403L - H1: Principles of GIS Lab

Dr. Bottenberg's interests involve the disciplines of geology, remote sensing and GIS. Using InSAR techniques, she studies the movement of the Earth's crust to detect volcanic inflation and deflation.  She also models tectonic plate motion in 3D visualization software to understand rifting environments. Specifically,she has worked in Afar, Ethiopia to study the kinematics of the African, Arabian and Somali plates. Other research interests include environmental geochemistry and the effects of heavy metals in streams and exploring past volcanic activity on the Snake River Plain in Idaho using remote sensing and field based studies.

Dr. Caryn Evilia

Associate Professor - Biochemistry

CHEM 1111L-H4: General Chemistry I Laboratory

PhD Chemistry, University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Evilia's research program is concerned with the effects of extreme conditions on proteins and nucleic acids, and on the structural adaptations organisms that live in these conditions have evolved to thrive in their environment. Her lab will study these factors through a combination of experimental and computational biochemistry, structural biology, and ultimately, genetic experimentation with archaebacteria.

Dr. Evilia's interest in archaebacteria started as an undergraduate microbiology major at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in the lab of Dr. Shiladitya DasSarama, where she investigated the potential for GC-rich promoter sequences to adopt alternative DNA structures. She continued her work on DNA structure as a doctoral candidate in chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania. As a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Ya-Ming Hou's group at Thomas Jefferson University, she shifted her focus to proteins, investigating the peptide sequence adaptations organisms adopt to cope with extreme environments.

 

Dr. Courtney Jenkins

Assistant Professor - Chemistry

CHEM 1111 - H1: General Chemistry I

CHEM 1111L - H1: General Chemistry I Lab

Ph.D. Biochemistry, Purdue University

Research area: Sulfur-based Polymer Chemistry

Dr. John Kalivas

Professor - Chemistry

CHEM 1111 - H1: General Chemistry I

Ph.D. Analytical Chemistry, University of Washington, 1982

Research areas: Analytical Chemistry, Chemometrics, Chemical Education

Dr. Shannon Kobs Nawotniak

Associate Professor - Geosciences and University Honors Program Director

GEOL 1100 - H1: The Dynamic Earth
HONS 3393 - 01: Introduction to Honors Thesis
HONS 4493 - 01, 02 and 03: Honors Senior Thesis or Project

PhD Geosciences, State University of New York at Buffalo

Research interests:  physical volcanology, computational fluid dynamics, high performance computing

Dr. Kobs Nawotniak investigates the connection between process and produce in volcanic eruptions, ranging in scale from the origins and underpinnings of monogenetic volcanic fields through eddy-scale mixing in eruption columns. She is currently Geology Co-Lead on the NASA FINESSE project and Deputy PI on the NASA BASALT project, both of which use terrestrial lavas to investigate planetary volcanoes.

Dr. Leslie Nickerson

Assistant Professor

CHEM 3301 - H2: Organic Chemistry I

CHEM 3301L - H1 Organic Chemistry I Lab

B.S. Chemistry, University of Idaho (2014)

PhD. Chemistry, University of California (2019)

Enouri Omar

Associate Lecturer - Department of Chemistry

CHEM 3303L-H1: Organic Chemistry I Laboratory