Hi, I’m Jess!
I am a glacial hydrologist 💧❄️🧊
& postdoc in the glacier modeling lab as of Fall 2021. working with Kristin on the Follow the Water project investigating the firn aquifers on Helheim Glacier on the eastern Greenland Ice Sheet.
I’m interested in understanding the coupling between meltwater and ice dynamics on glaciers and ice sheets.
Hochstetter 434
jzmejia@buffalo.edu
http://jessicamejia.xyz
Current Work↗
Follow my current work in the Glacier Modeling Lab at UB. Focused on
Past Work↗
Stay updated and see our current exhibitions here.
Other Projects & Media ↗
Get to know our opening times, ticket prices and discounts.
current work at ub
Follow the Water
I came to Buffalo to join the Follow the Water project, focused on understanding the hydrology of Helheim, an outlet glacier in southeast Greenland. We will be installing GPS stations in a strain diamond around crevasses being fed by a firn aquifer. We hope to capture the crevasse slowly fracture to the bed. These measurements of surface strain will inform a crevasse propagation model that tells us about how water reaches the bed at the most inland areas of the Greenland Ice Sheet.
❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎
I finished my Ph.D. in May 2021 at the University of South Florida. My work there focused on the role of moulins in the hydraulic system of the western Greenland Ice Sheet. To learn more about the role of moulins in the glacial hydraulic cycle, we instrumented moulins with piezometers on Sermeq Avannarleq, an outlet glacier just north of Ilulissat. We also measured meltwater production and delivery to moulins, surface routing variability, surface ice motion, and glaciohydraulic tremor within the ablation area.
By collecting robust datasets I spent a lot of time on data analysis and developing open-source tools in python.
❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎ ❄︎
& other projects I’m working on
CryoCommunity is the product of the MARS pod’s (Midwest And Random Stragglers glaciology) participation in URGEGeosciences in Spring 2021. Members of our URGE pod represent many different institutions and we seek to involve the broader cryospheric community in positive change. We started this website to generate, collate, and distribute best practices across a suite of academic processes and institution types.
The purpose of CryoCommunity is to build and foster a more just, equitable, diverse, and inclusive community and culture within the cryospheric sciences. We recognize that systematic racism and sexism are harmful barriers inherent in academic institutions. CryoCommunity aims to share resources and best practices across the community and to advocate for the changes needed to create an equitable and inclusive culture.