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My name is Joanmarie Del Vecchio (pronouns: she/her), and I am a Postdoctoral Fellow at Dartmouth College. I am a geoscientist who investigates how climate change has shaped the landscape, both past and present. My research focuses on the response of permafrost landscapes to warming, as well as the use of computational approaches in earth science research. Specifically, I think about how the presence of permafrost alters the movement of water, sediment and carbon, and what happens to those fluxes as permafrost thaws. 

I received my PhD from Penn State in the summer of 2021. My dissertation involved a number of investigation techniques – field sampling, isotopic analyses, geophysical imaging, remote sensing and numerical models – to learn about the history of  landscapes in Appalachia and Alaska, and the climate conditions that may have changed the pace and pattern of erosion.  As a Neukom Postdoctoral Fellow, I use computational methods to investigate high-latitude landscape form and topographic change. Permafrost landscapes are undergoing changes due to climate-driven changes in hydrology and temperature. I am using remote sensing data and field observations to understand the impact of permafrost thaw on erosion and greenhouse gas release, and is looking at the global influence of permafrost on river density. My research is also examining the distribution and formation of water tracks and their vulnerability to disturbance. 

My teaching philosophy focuses on providing students with a toolkit for exploration, leading to curiosity-driven insights and creative problem-solving. My teaching approaches include developing quantitative and computational skills as well as communication skills, with a goal of preparing students for advanced geology research and engaging students with diverse scientific interests. In my courses, I incorporate field, laboratory, and computational methods into the study of how Earth works. She has also designed term projects in which students choose a scientific journal article, communicate its findings, and develop their own data tutorials based on the article’s topic.

Please see my GitHub Site for my portfolio of data projects and geospatial Python resources.