Happy new year, folks! It was a busy and wonderful Fall semester in the JETlab – it flew by, with many travel highlights along the way, some of which include:
September:
- THESIS2019 conference at the University of Delaware (thanks to Tom Hsu!), where Hannah gave her first presentation and poster, and we nerded out with our favorite sediment transport friends from around the world.
- JETlab group dinner! We welcomed two new students, Arefe and Julio, to the crew.
October:
- I visited UIUC to give a seminar, toured my PhD colleague Rafael Tinoco‘s amazing EEL lab, then Rafael came to UT the next week to do the same!
- I officially started my first lead PI grant, from SERDP! It’s a one-year SEED grant, involving fluidization of a sediment bed in turbulence and the potential to exhume buried munitions .. stay tuned.
November:
- APS-DFD conference in Seattle with my favorite fluid mechanicians! Part of the Cornell EFMH crew (+ Berkeley) pictured.
- Gave seminars at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University, with Thanksgiving spent wandering around downtown Vancouver, gorging on sushi and oysters. Many thanks to Greg Lawrence, Jason Olsthoorn, Jeremy Venditti, and Lizzie Dingle for making my Canada trip happen and showing me your fabulous labs!
December:
- Traveled to the SERDP-ESTCP symposium in DC, which was wonderfully eye-opening on the DoD’s environmental interests.
- Traveled to the AGU Fall Meeting in SF, where Luisa, Aubrey, and Greg gave fantastic talks and posters. And I guess I did too, in the #FlumeFriday session. Caught up with many of the Cowen EFMH crew from Cornell, always a great time.
We also have two December graduates of EWRE from the JETlab. Luisa Florez and Andrew Jaeger successfully completed their MS degrees, woot woot!! Starting in January, Luisa will be working for BP in Houston, and Andrew will be the lead Engineer of the Coast Guard in Corpus Christi. I’m selfishly glad all my graduates have stayed in Texas so far, since it means I don’t have to say goodbye yet. We don’t have a December ceremony, so … no graduation photos, sadly.
A few of us did a little hike at McKinney Falls State Park over winter break:
There were many other memorable moments in the lab – joyful, curious, disastrous, and hilarious. I’m very thankful to my students, as always, for their positive attitudes, troubleshooting skills, and love of learning.
Cheers to a wonderful start to 2020!