Dr. Julie Loisel Completes Her First Semester in the College of Geosciences

Dec 7, 2015

Dr. Julie Loisel is about to complete her first semester as a faculty member within the College of Geosciences. 

Dr. Loisel began her academic career at Université de Québec in Montréal, Canada. She studied physical geography for her undergraduate and master’s degrees. She pursued her Ph.D. in Earth and Environmental Studies at Lehigh University, graduating in 2012 with the dissertation, “Autogenic and allogenic controls on carbon dynamics in peatlands from Alaska and Patagonia.”

Loisel has over five years of experience as a teaching assistant and adjunct faculty at former universities. Her courses covered a range of material from the science of environmental issues and terrestrial ecosystem ecology, to biogeography. She brings these experiences to the classroom in the course on Planet Earth, which she taught this fall.

Among her academic endeavors, Loisel has conducted a large amount of external research. She served as a visiting research scholar at Texas A&M Galveston in 2014 studying lignin, phenols, carbohydrates and amino acid extraction and analyses. Loisel’s latest post-doctoral research took place at the University of California, Los Angeles, focusing on climate change in the Southwest and its impacts on terrestrial ecosystems.

Loisel is the recipient of a multitude of awards and research grants, including the Alexander Graham Bell Canada Doctoral Postgraduate Scholarship, awarded by the Canadian government to one outstanding PhD student. This year, Loisel is also part of a large research grant from the National Science Foundation, Earth Sciences division, P2C2 Program  (Paleo Perspectives on Climate Change) to support research on water isotopes in peat mosses as proxies for understanding climate and atmospheric circulation changes in southern Patagonia. Loisel participated in the project design and proposal writing for this grant.

Loisel has 14 publications and has participated in more than 30 seminars and speaking engagements about her research topics. She is also a member of the Association of American Geographers as well as a host of other scientific organizations.

By: Emily Peter ‘15