People

Luke D. Trusel, Ph.D.

Wilson Faculty Fellow in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences
Associate Professor
Department of Geography
Penn State University

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Department profile

Prior to joining Penn State, I was an Assistant Professor at Rowan University, a Postdoctoral Scholar at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and a NASA Earth and Space Science Fellow during my PhD in Geography at Clark University.

Graduate students

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Mahsa Bahrami

PhD Student, Geography and Climate Science
2024 NASA FINESST Recipient

Mahsa completed her master’s degree in Climate and Environmental Sciences at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany, where her research focused on the evolution of supraglacial lakes using Sentinel-2 imagery in Greenland. At Penn State, her research focuses on the assessment of hydrological processes at the surface of the Antarctic ice sheet using remote sensing data.

Jessica Kromer

Ph.D. Candidate, Geography and Climate Science

Jess joined the group in 2020 after earning an M.A. in Geography from California State University - Los Angeles. For her master’s thesis research, Jess interned at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and used atmospheric reanalysis products and the Ice Sheet System Model to quantify surface mass balance for the Greenland ice sheet. At Penn State, Jess is studying cryosphere system interactions in the Antarctic using satellite remote sensing and other observational and modeled climate datasets.

Xiao Li

PhD Student, Geography and Climate Science

Xiao arrives at Penn State after serving as a scientific assistant at ETH Zurich and completing a master’s degree in Geodesy and Surveying Engineering at Wuhan University. His past research includes developing novel approaches to assess ice sheet surface height changes from satellite altimetry data. At Penn State, Xiao seeks to use remote sensing and machine learning to understand surface mass, hydrological, and climatic processes impacting the Antarctic ice sheet.

Undergraduate Students

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James Rowley

Majors: Geography, Economics

Certificates: Geographic Information Science

James is working to understand magnitudes and sources of uncertainty in satellite estimates of Antarctic surface hydrology.

Join Us!

Prospective post-doctoral researchers and graduate and undergraduate students with interests in cryospheric sciences and joining our research group are encouraged to reach out about potential opportunities. Additional helpful information can also be found via the Department of Geography’s website on Graduate Degrees and the listing of faculty in our department. You may also be interested in reaching out to other cryosphere-interested faculty members, Dr. Shujie Wang in Geography, and affiliates of the Penn State Ice and Climate Research Center.

Former lab members

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Emma Robertson

Degree: M.S. Geography, 2023

Emma was a NSF Graduate Research Fellow Program (GRFP) recipient whose research focused on assessing the geochemical signatures of extreme precipitation events in West Antarctic ice cores. Since completing her M.S., Emma has moved on to pursuing a Ph.D. at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Germany.

Zhuolai Pan

Degrees: M.S. Geography, 2022; B.S., Earth Sciences, 2020

Zhuolai’s research focused on Antarctic surface hydrology and climate. Since completing his M.S., Zhuolai is now employed in the geospatial industry.

Camilla Baumer

Degree: B.S. Geography, 2025

Certificates: Geographic Information Science, Geospatial Big Data Analytics

Camilla’s research explored high-resolution digital elevation models as an indicator of surface hydrological dynamics in Antarctica.

Anton Fatula

Degree: B.S. Environmental Resource Management, 2023

Minors: Climatology; Jazz Performance

Anton’s research improved the understanding of the drivers of surface hydrological changes on East Antarctica’s Amery ice shelf.

Leanne Cioffi

Degree: B.S., 2019
Major: Geographic Information Science
Minor: Geoscience

Cheyenne Rickabaugh

Degree: B.A., 2019
Major: Geography
Minors: Geoscience; Geographic Information Science