Kristen is a coastal sedimentologist with research experience in reconstructing relative sea-level change and estimating the recurrence intervals of extreme flooding events from coastal storms. Kristen is passionate about understanding the effects of climate change and sea-level rise on extreme flooding events in order to improve the resilience of coastal communities impacted by natural catastrophes.
Prior to joining Alluvium, Kristen completed her PhD at Rutgers University, where she worked on extending the record of extreme flood events from landfalling storms along the US Atlantic coast using geologic evidence of overwash events in coastal wetlands. Within this work, Kristen demonstrated the utility of geologic records in improving estimates of extreme flood level return periods when fused with instrumental tide gauge records in extreme statistical modeling.
From her research background, Kristen has extensive field experience in coastal environments and has established large datasets of the sedimentological, biogeochemical, and micropaleontological characteristics of coastal sediments. Kristen routinely utilizes GIS and coding software to analyze and present data in an efficient and effective manner. Kristen also has experience in using semi-empirical spatio-temporal modeling to reconstruct relative sea-level change over geologic timescales.
