Led by Charley Driscoll, EMPOWER is a team of over 50 people, including the leadership team, affiliated faculty, staff, graduate students, and external advisors. Browse our full directory below, which includes the leadership team and our graduate student trainees, or check out the information about our affiliated faculty and external advisors.
Sara Alesi
MS, Civil & Environmental Engineering
Sara is from New Fairfield, CT and earned a B.S. in Environmental Science and a B.A. in Geography from Villanova University in 2014. After completing her undergraduate degrees, Sara worked in an environmental chemistry lab in Connecticut, where she analyzed soil and water samples for a variety of parameters. Wanting to see the bigger scope of her work, Sara joined the Civil & Environmental Engineering Department at Syracuse University in August 2015 and began working with Dr.…
Emily Baker
PhD, Earth Sciences
Currently, Emily is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Civil Engineering & Architecture at the University of Pavia within the Centro Interdipartimentale di Ricerca sulle Acque. My research focuses on hydrologic and hydrogeological modeling of surface and sub-surface water flow and transport in the northern region of Italy.…
Kyle Blaha
MS, Chemistry
Kyle earned his Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry from Hiram College in 2015. While there he did research on metal-ion concentrations in local water/soil sources, such as the Penguin exhibit of the nearby zoo. He also spent time researching the steric effects of aldimine synthesis, a project he did his undergraduate capstone on. Kyle joined the Kahan group in 2015.…
Crystal Burgess
MS, Earth Sciences
Crystal earned her Bachelor of Arts in Geology from Alfred University in 2016 with a minor in Environmental Studies. Prior to her graduate studies, Crystal interned at SU on Project SWIFT developing an interannual time series of naturally occurring methane concentrations in the advance of unconventional gas production in the southern tier of New York.…
Samuel Caldwell
MS, Earth Sciences
Sam attended Amherst College, where he completed a Bachelor of Arts in Geology and was a three-year starter on the Amherst College football team in the program’s winningest class in its over 130-year history. He completed independent research through the KECK Geology Consortium on the geochemistry of two adjacent volcanic lakes in the Newberry Caldera in Newberry, OR.…
Nathaniel Chien
MS, Earth Sciences
Nathaniel attended the College of William & Mary where he earned a Bachelors of Science degree in Geology in 2016. His undergraduate research focused on understanding the erosional history of the Appalachian Mountain Range. Now, as a graduate student, he is working with Dr. Laura Lautz in the Department of Earth Sciences. His current research focuses on utilizing groundwater chemistry data and statistical methods to fingerprint sources of contamination in shallow groundwater.…
Megan Daley
PhD, Civil & Environmental Engineering
Megan is from Syracuse originally and received a B.S. in Environmental Engineering from SU in 2011. She spent three years at the engineering firm Arcadis after graduation before coming back to the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering to work with Drs. David Chandler and Steve Shaw (SUNY ESF) in 2014. Her research interests are in low-flow stream recession and groundwater hydrology in small watersheds in the northeast.…
Emily Gaub
Emily Gaub received her Bachelors of Science in mathematics and environmental science from Pacific University in 2016. As an undergraduate, her research focused on rook polynomials as well as passive restoration methods for floodplains using local beaver activity. She is currently a masters student in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering working with Dr. Laura Condon.…
Robin Glas
PhD, Earth Sciences
Robin comes to Syracuse University after a fulfilling career teaching 7th through 12th grade. She has taught across the natural sciences and field of mathematics to students in the United States and abroad at the American International School in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She is interested in using geophysical methods to characterize aquifer structure and function, and works in a remote field site in the Peruvian Andes in a region that is greatly affected by climate change and melting glaciers.
Kristina Gutchess
PhD, Earth Sciences
Kristina is a third-year PhD candidate in the Department of Earth Sciences. She previously attended SUNY Cortland where she studied Geology. Her research aims to strengthen the understanding of processes that affect water quality, including the impacts of both humans and naturally occurring processes. She uses modeling and statistical approaches, combined with field and laboratory work to explore the utility of halogens as sensitive tracers for the transport of solutes and the movement of surface water and groundwater.…
Quercus Hamlin
MS, Civil & Environmental Engineering
Quercus is an MS student and NSF Graduate Research Fellow in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He earned his BS in GIS from Michigan State University in 2017. At MSU, he developed high resolution maps of nitrogen and phosphorous loading to the landscape across the Great Lakes Basin. He is currently working with Dr.…
Yaskira Mota
MS, Civil & Environmental Engineering
Yaskira attended Syracuse University where she earned her degree in Environmental Engineering. Currently she is pursuing her Master’s in Environmental Engineering and working on data modeling to relate change in thermal stratification of Adirondack lakes with changes in Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC) .
Darci Pauser
PhD, Political Science
Darci is a PhD student in Political Science with a focus on International Relations and Public Policy. She completed her Master’s in Public Administration with a specialization in Environmental Policy at Syracuse University and her BA in Anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley. Her dissertation research aims to further our understanding of state-level decision making, the role of transnational scientific communities, and the extent of foreign policy issue area linkage on the subject of transboundary water resource management.…
Riley Sessanna
MS, Earth Sciences
Riley attended SUNY Geneseo where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Geology. He also has a strong background in mathematics and physics which inspired him to pursue the study of Hydrogeology. He now works with Christa Kelleher in the Department of Earth Sciences as a Master’s Student. His interests are widespread, but he is currently studying a local stream in Syracuse, connecting patterns of hydrology and biogeochemistry through field measurements and aerial imaging.
Lucie Worthen
M.S., Civil & Environmental Engineering
Lucie Worthen is a first-year M.S. student in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, studying with Dr. Cliff Davidson. She received her B.S. degree in Environmental Engineering from the University of New Hampshire. Her research interests include understanding the impact of plant communities and evapotranspiration in modeling the hydraulics and hydrology of green roofs through the software EPA SWMM5.…
Chenwei “David” Zheng
PhD, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
David is a PhD student in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering working with Dr. Akih. His research focuses on computational analysis of combustion and equation of state modeling. David uses Monte Carlo Molecular Simulation to analyze the quantities of different ensembles. He is working on the computation of thermodynamic behaviors based on molecular forces in micro-state.…