Saslaw, M., Yang, D., Lee, D., Poulsen, C. J., & Henkes, G. A. 2024. An Isotope Mass Balance Analysis of Evaporative Loss From Lake Turkana, Kenya Using δ18O and δD of Natural Waters. Water Resources Research, 60(6). https://doi.org/10.1029/2023WR036076
I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Geosciences at Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, New York. My research focuses on reconstructing Miocene climate in the Turkana Basin in northern Kenya as part of a collaborative project with geologists, paleontologists, and paleoanthropologists to understand the earliest beginnings of hominin evolution.
As a member of the Henkes Lab and a collaborator on the Turkana Miocene Project, I am building contemporary stable isotope hydrology records for the Turkana region and developing a new analytical approach to clumped isotope thermometry of soil carbonates that will enable interpretation of paleoclimate signals from very old, diagenetically altered samples. In addition to research, I am an organizer with my graduate workers union, Communications Workers of America Local 1104, and a devoted New Yorker.