Mikaela Pulsipher

College of Science

As a senior Geology major, Mikaela’s involvement with several research projects has bolstered her education and her lab and field expertise. She began her research career by working with Dr. Jim Evans on projects that culminated in co-authorship on a publication detailing the in-situ stresses of a borehole in the western Snake River Plain. Mikaela then worked with fellow student Fallon Rowe on a funded URCO project under the mentorship of Dr. Carol Dehler. Together, they utilized uranium-lead detrital zircon geochronology and petrography in order to better understand the depositional age and provenance of the mid-Neoproterozoic Visingsö Group in southern Sweden. Mikaela has presented this research at several poster sessions and is now writing a first-authored paper that will be submitted for publication shortly. Mikaela has served as an Undergraduate Teaching Fellow, Vice President of the USU Geology Club, and field assistant for two geology graduate students. In addition to her research and classes, Mikaela currently works as a lab assistant in Dr. Dennis Newell’s Stable Isotope Geochemistry Lab where she prepares and analyzes samples using various scientific instruments. Mikaela will be graduating this summer and plans to begin a master’s degree in geology in the fall of 2019.