Graduate Student Profiles

Office Location: STEPS 1__

Area of Specialization: Geomorphology, Remote Sensing

Leia is a master’s student at Lehigh University studying Earth and Environmental Sciences.  She graduated from Lehigh University with an undergraduate degree in Earth and Environmental Sciences and a minor in Chinese. Her previous work included focusing on traditional methods of erosion control and using magnetic susceptibility as a proxy for erosion rates. In her free time she enjoys dancing, cooking, and reading till her heart's content.

Office Location: STEPS 240

Area of Specialization: Remote Sensing, Geospatial Science, Cryosphere

Mahboubeh Boueshagh is a Ph.D. candidate in Earth & Environmental Sciences at Lehigh University. She earned her B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Civil & Geomatics Engineering with a focus on Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Her research applies remote sensing and geospatial science to study Earth's systems, with a particular emphasis on snowpack dynamics and wildfire interactions in the Western U.S. She integrates data science and advanced remote sensing techniques to improve the monitoring and understanding of these critical processes. Mahboubeh has hands-on field experience in remote sensing of snow, including conducting snow measurements and validating satellite-derived snowpack estimates in mountainous environments. She is also passionate about bridging the gap between academic research and industry applications, leveraging scientific advancements for real-world solutions. In her free time, she enjoys being outdoors in nature, skiing, and hiking.

Office Location: STEPS 580

Area of Specialization: Plant community ecology

Vanessa earned her Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences from the University of Energy and Natural Resources in Ghana. She worked as a Research and Teaching Assistant at the Department of Biological Sciences on Liana Ecology and Distribution in different forest ecosystems in Ghana. Vanessa’s interests are in forest ecology, emphasizing understudied plant communities and climate change’s effects on biodiversity. She is also interested in leveraging remote sensing technology to explore ecological questions at a landscape scale. Outside of work, Vanessa is a nature enthusiast with a keen eye for capturing the beauty of nature through photography.

Office Location: ST 220

Area of Specialization: Stable Isotope Geochemistry, Volatile Cycling, Planetary Geology

Juan is a Geoscientist studying the Nitrogen (N) and Carbon (C) cycling through Earth’s atmosphere-crust-mantle systems in Dr. Gray Bebout’s research group. His research focuses on N and C transport and behavior during subduction zone, crustal and hydrothermal processes, with implications for deep Earth biogeochemistry and planetary habitability. He also investigates how N and organic biosignatures are preserved in Icelandic volcanic rocks as analogs of the Martian surface. His work thus far, has been published in the journals Geology and Lithos (Google scholar profile). Juan holds a M.Sc. from TU Freiberg (Germany) in Environmental Geosciences and a B.Sc. from Universidad de los Andes (Colombia) in Geosciences. He is a massive football, tennis, chess and cycling fan and everything sports related. He enjoys going on long hikes, good music and cooking and dancing with friends.  

Office Location: STEPS 580

Area of Specialization: Microbial and plant community ecology 

Matthew earned his B.S. in Biology from Southern Adventist University in 2023, where he investigated the relationships between spring wildflower diversity and soil bacterial and fungal diversity. Matthew’s interests are in applying ecological theories such as island biogeography theory and community assembly theory to soil microbial systems. He is especially interested in using canopy soils as a model system for this research due to the highly fragmented island-like environment and unique abiotic and biotic conditions in canopy soils.

Office Location: ST 240

Area of Specialization: Seismology

Aracely earned her Bachelor of Science in Geophysics from the University of Texas at El Paso in 2023. Her current research focuses on identifying and characterizing an earthquake swarm in the northern forearc region of Ecuador. She applies machine learning techniques and earthquake relocation methods to improve event detection and accuracy. Her work also explores the spatiotemporal migration patterns of the swarm, incorporates waveform cross-correlation to identify event families, and includes analysis of focal mechanisms to better understand the underlying faulting processes. In her free time, she enjoys hiking and collecting interesting rocks—especially volcanic ones.