I have had the good fortune to collaborate on research with many talented students during my years at Pomona College, and it has been wonderful sharing some of their accomplishments over the years as they forge ahead into careers and/or graduate school. Several summers ago I worked jointly with rising senior Robby Goldman (’15) and rising junior Jack Albright (’16) on a project transitioning my exploration of caldera formation from 2D axisymmetric finite element models to a 3D configuration that permitted inclusion of tectonic stress effects, and their paths and interests have been intertwined ever since. Both went on to do modeling-focused senior thesis projects exploring volcanological topics, and via different routes both made their way to UIUC where they are now working with my collaborator Dr. Patricia Gregg.

Along the way Robby and Jack acquired many well-deserved accolades–among them a Fulbright, 2 NSF Graduate Fellowships (Albright ; Goldman), and a prestigious UIUC scholarship. I’m just as impressed, however, by their dedication to communicating their science to a variety of different audiences, for instance on the UIUC campus via open house demonstrations, via prolific YouTube postings during a science cruise to study seafloor volcanism in the Pacific, and most recently at the national level via the new AGU Voices for Science program. I can’t wait to see what these gifted young scientists do next, but I bet it will be as spectacular as the volcanism they’re studying while at UIUC!