Graduate Students

Graduate Students

Bri Sotkovsky

Bri is studying microplastics in beach sediment surrounding the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. Her thesis work is focusing on microplastics that enter the bay via the Salinas River and agricultural runoff. Her questions regarding microplastics include: what weathering pattern do microplastics follow? Do microplastics follow normal littoral transport or does it behave differently in transport? How do microplastic fragments and fibers behave differently during transport? She will answer these questions using Scanning Electron Microscopy and EDS.   She graduated from Sacramento State with a B.A. in Geology. She joined the Geological Oceanography lab in 2020. While out of the lab she is interested in marine biology and education, reading in her free time, and graphic art. She is also working as MLML's social media manager.
Email: brianna.sotkovsky@sjsu.edu

Noelle Lewis

Noelle’s research broadly focuses on paleoclimate through the lens of the geological sciences. For her undergraduate research she studied past sea level change in coastal wetlands on the East Coast of the US through analysis of agglutinated foraminifera tests. At Moss Landing, Noelle studies past precipitation changes on the land surrounding the Gulf of California over the past 300,000 years. She hopes to learn more about what mechanisms control the North American Monsoon, so we can be better prepared for how it will change due to anthropogenic climate change.

Email: noelle.lewis@sjsu.edu

Victoria Dickey

Victoria Dickey earned her BS in Oceanography at Hawaii Pacific University and joined MLML's Geological Oceanography lab in 2018. She is studying microplastics in the sediment of Elkhorn Slough to understand if agriculture plastics are making their way into Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. Victoria hopes to continue her research in fine-grained sediment after earning her MS to contribute to the growing research field of microplastics.

Email: victoria.dickey@sjsu.edu

Marcel Peliks

Marcel joined the geological oceanography lab in 2018, his thesis work has mainly been focused on developing a high-resolution multibeam system for shallow water seafloor mapping. While testing the system, Marcel also conducted a number of preliminary surveys in the Monterey Canyon head that capture geomorphic changes at approximately 2-week intervals from October 2021 to January 2022. When not doing seafloor mapping work, Marcel likes to spend his time knitting and ice sculpting.

Email: marcel.peliks@sjsu.edu