Hi! I'm Sam.

I recently graduated from Reed College with a physics degree, and am now pursing a Master's in Geophysics at Stanford University. My research interests lie in the multiphase physics of natural hazards and climate systems. In all my work, I am committed to creating a safer and more resilient world.

Fundamental Physics of Frictional Fluids

Upcoming talk at AGU '23! My main research project explores the flow-to-fracture transition, as seen in Hele-Shaw cell experiments with frictional fluids. There is evidence that this macro-level behavior, which describes the fluidization of landslides and flow of gassy magma, is dictated by micro-level processes at the grain scale. We are directly numerically simulating multiphase interactions between grain, host fluid, and gas, and we focus our work on the impact of the viscosity of the host fluid to see how this behavior is exhibited in a variety of natural systems. To track the interface between the gas and the saturated granular medium, we use a level-set method.

Institute Ice Stream

(In Progress)

Stanford Wildfire Hackathon

In Spring of 2023, I participated in my first Hackathon. After taking a survery course on Machine Learning methods, my team and I useed publicly available wildfire and weather data to explore compound hazards. Specifically, we used the Random Forest method to characterize the relative importance of accumulated rainfall and wildfire history in predicting a debris flow event. While precipitation is often a trigger for debris flows, given California's climate we thought that wildfire history might play a more important role. In our study, however, this ended up not being the case and precipitation the day of and day before an event accounted for 86% of our model's prediction.

Selected Work Experiences and Skills

Coding Skills

Coding languages I've worked with, listed in order of experience: Python, MATLAB, C++, Command Line, Git, Julia, Mathematica, and Fortran.

Relevant Coursework

So far in my Master's degree, I've taken Solid Mechanics, Fluid Mechanics, and a survey course on Machine Learning. This upcoming academic year, I expect to take an intermediate coding course in C++, a few courses on numerical methods and pde's, including a course on Coastal Ocean Modeling, and Atmospheric Physics.

Haas Graduate Public Sevice Fellowship

This year, I was awarded the Haas GPS Fellowship to develop concrete skills in community-engaged scholarship. My team will be working with the THRIVE coaliton on non-profts to understand how the new Doerr school of Sustainabilty might best serve its local communities.

Computational Experience

In my research work, I have also gained experience with High Preformance Computing on Stanford's SHERLOCK and have used the SLURM workload manager.

Physical Oceanography Research Intern

My junior year summer, I was awarded the DAAD RISE Internship and worked with a graduate student at the University of Bremen to research the effects of changes in sea-ice coverage and stratification on wind-driven waves. We ran experiments with the MITgcm using oceanographic salinity and temperature profiles to model how a simple storm disrupts the pycnocline structure of the Arctic ocean.

Environmental Action Intern

From May 2020 to December 2020, I was a member of inaugural Environmental Action group at MIT's Environmental Solutions Initiative, created to respond to a variety of environmental issues with short term products. Some of the main projects I worked on include: Water access in Navajo Nation (white paper), analysis for Virginia's GND, aid to NRDC for the Mig. Bird Treaty Act, white paper on analyzing supply chain of American Lobster and Snow Crab to aid Right Whales.