Current Fellow
Hannah Palmer, 37th GSA-USGS Congressional Science Fellow.
GSA and the U.S. Geological Survey are pleased to announce that Dr. Hannah Palmer will serve as the 2022-2023 GSA-USGS Congressional Science Fellow.
Dr. Hannah Palmer is a climate and environmental scientist dedicated to conducting science in service of the public and leveraging science to inform decision making. Her scientific research focuses on investigating the biogeochemistry of a changing world, impacts of environmental change on ecosystems, and human dimensions of global change.
Dr. Palmer earned her Bachelor of Science from the University of California, Los Angeles in Marine Biology and her Ph.D. in Earth and Planetary Sciences from the University of California, Davis. In her doctoral research, she utilized the paleorecord to understand biogeochemical and ecosystem change across systems and timescales. Specifically, she focused on investigating marine sediment records to understand oceanographic change and ecosystem responses to change through the last 12,000 years. As a graduate student she served as the University of California Center Sacramento Presidential Graduate Opportunities for Leadership Development Fellow in which she worked with the California Council on Science and Technology to communicate up-to-date science on wildfire to state policymakers. Dr. Palmer also served as the co-director of the Santa Rosa Junior College – Bodega Marine Laboratory Internship Program in 2019-2020 in which she led a program to provide local community college students with opportunities for research experience and professional development.
Following her PhD, Dr. Palmer was awarded the University of California Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of California, Merced. In this role, Dr. Palmer investigated how wildfire severity impacts the biogeochemistry of landscapes following wildfire to both understand effects of modern fire as well as to improve how we understand wildfire in the past. Dr. Palmer recently served as an American Geophysical Union Thriving Earth Exchange Community Science Fellow in which she worked to connect scientists and community leaders to solve local challenges.
Dr. Palmer enjoys taking on new challenges as she has continually worked to build new collaborations, investigate diverse study systems, interact across organizations, and to link science and policy. When she is not working, she enjoys trail running, baking and eating delicious goods, jumping in the ocean, and spending time with friends, old and new. She is eager to learn from her experience as a Geological Society of America Congressional Science Fellow and to continue to work to bridge the gap between science and policy.