Janine Birnbaum, ’18, developed an early fascination with the Earth’s interior. “I’d go outside with my field guide and my mom and bash on rocks so I could amass my mineral collection,” she said of her early field exploits. This childhood curiosity blossomed into her academic pursuits at Stanford. By combining both the computational aspects of geophysics and the field-based science of geology, Birnbaum discovered the value of “using tools, such as numerical models, to connect fundamental physical processes that you can’t see.” Beyond the classroom, she united these disciplines to study lava lakes on volcanoes as part of a research project through the Stanford Earth Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SESUR).
Birnbaum’s commitment to crossing disciplines also extends to her fellow classmates. In 2017, she helped found the Undergraduate Student Council, an analogue to the Graduate Student Advisory Committee (GSAC), that is designed to help undergraduates address their unique needs. With representation from all the majors within Stanford Earth, the Undergraduate Student Council serves as a liaison between students, administration, and faculty. “We needed a student body to represent the interests of the undergrads,” Birnbaum said. She is particularly proud of the council’s role in redesigning the student lounge, located in GeoCorner, to be an inclusive space where students can hold meetings and study. The group hosts social events to bridge the school’s disciplines and promote its majors to prospective undergraduates at campus-wide events, such as Admit Weekend and New Student Orientation. Birnbaum hopes that new students can continue her legacy of “giving students a voice” by joining the council.
Explore More
-
JP Spaventa, '21, Zoe Von Gerlach, '21 and Andrew Ying, '21, were awarded for the project they created in geophysics professor Dustin Schroeder's Introductory Seminar, The Space Mission to Europa.
-
Tiny movements in Earth’s outermost layer may provide a Rosetta Stone for deciphering the physics and warning signs of big quakes. New algorithms that work a little like human vision are now detecting these long-hidden microquakes in the growing mountain of seismic data.
