James "Jake" Gearon
Tell us about yourself
I’m James "Jake" Gearon, a 4th year Ph.D. candidate at Indiana University, Bloomington. I received my B.S. and M.S. in Geology from the University of Texas at Austin in 2019 and 2021, respectively. I'm originally from Maryland, just outside Washington D.C. I wanted to be a geologist from early on, but also like computers. I've sort of been trying to merge those interests ever since.
What is your research about?
My Ph.D. research is about river avulsion, or the wholesale relocation of a river channel to a different location on the floodplain. Getting data on the phenomenon is difficult because of the infrequency of avulsions and the lack of reliable topography data. My research thus far has been concerned with using computer science and data science methods to attack this conventional sedimentological question of why rivers avulse.
What excites you about your research?
What excites me is the volume, variety, and velocity of Earth science data these days! With cloud computing and the open source software solutions around it, a massive range of new scales have opened up for investigation.
What broader importance does your research have for society?
River avulsions are way more common in the Global South, this could be for a variety of reasons, but those are the facts. Because of this, avulsion is generally understudied as a natural disaster. Global flood models, for example, do not consider avulsion whatsoever.
What inspired you to pursue a career in Earth Science?
I really liked science but I also really liked hiking and backpacking and going outside. Geology seemed like a no brainer because of that.
What are you looking to do after you complete your PhD or postdoc?
I'd like to continue in academia if possible!
Given unlimited funding and access to resources, what is your dream project that you would pursue?
Hm...probably train a large language model (think ChatGPT) on like 10,000 papers in sedimentology/geomorphology.
What else do you do? Any hobbies or interests outside of work?
I like reading, yoga, college football, history, politics, and lounging with my cat Milton!