New Lecturers Join EPS Faculty
New Lecturers Join EPS Faculty
Jordan Burkey is a new lecturer in the EPS department. She grew up in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, with a love for nature. As a child, she always had a fascination with marine life and geology. Growing up she always played in the local creek and in dirt piles outside of the local baseball field, fished to identify what fish species were in the waters at the beach, and kept a personal rock and leaf collection. Still staying in North Carolina, she earned her BS in geology and MS in geoscience at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington.
While in undergrad Burkey bounced between many ideas for a major. Started off as a nursing major, then switched to biology due to her interest in marine life. But then she took a prehistoric life class and started learning about the geologic timescale—it finally clicked. When she took the structural geology course, she knew that was the path made for her.
Burkey’s love for geology further grew while conducting research for her MS degree. During that time, she developed a love for geoscience education.
Her research is in structural geology and tectonics with a focus on active deformation within the Eastern California Shear Zone. In her investigations, Burkey helps determine quaternary slip rates for the active normal faults and compares those rates with the regional geodetic velocity. She also determines paleoseismic histories of the normal faults within the region.
Aside from her research, teaching is incredibly important and rewarding to Burkey. She strives to engage students, stimulate their curiosity, ensure their success, and act as an approachable mentor. She provides innovative and student-centered approaches to her classroom. She will be teaching GEOL 101 – The Dynamic Earth and GEOL 370 – Earth Structure and Geophysics.
Lecturer and laboratory coordinator Meilian (Maggie) Chen is an environmental geochemist whose research centers on studying the characteristics, sources, transformations, and fates of organic matter in aquatic ecosystems in the context of intensified anthropogenic activities and climate change. Her approaches include field investigation, remote sensing, and biogeochemical modeling. In addition, she is interested in water quality improvement and environmental sustainability.
Chen currently teaches GEOL 103 Earth’s Environments and coordinates an environmental geochemistry teaching lab. She looks forward to more chances to serve and collaborate with both students and faculty members.
