Elizabeth, please introduce yourself.
I'm Elizabeth Case, a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research (IMAU) at Utrecht University working with Michiel van den Brooke and Peter Kuipers-Munneke.
Tell us about your professional and academic career before becoming part of the OCEAN:ICE community.
I studied physics for my undergraduate degree at the University of California, Los Angeles, and then worked as an environmental journalist. It was during a big drought, and that journalism work was where I first became really interested in how water (and ice) shape landscapes and human societies. After cycling across the United States with Cycle for Science, I did a master's in mechanical engineering at Cornell University before starting a PhD at Columbia University and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory with Jonny Kingslake. My PhD was quite broad and exploratory. I worked on firn observations and modeling, alpine glaciers in Wyoming, and ice fabric as part of the GHOST project with the International Thwaites Glacier Consortium. Integral to my PhD was teaching and creative practice. I taught, and continue to work with, the Juneau Icefield Research Program, and blended art/humanities collaborations and practices into my thesis work, e.g., through Glacial Hauntologies.
What do you do within OCEAN:ICE?
For WP3 on the OCEAN:ICE project, I'm looking at the modeled freshwater flux input into the Southern Ocean from Antarctic surface processes, like melt, rain, runoff, and blowing snow and comparing these values across models.
What have you enjoyed about OCEAN:ICE so far?
This is my first EU project, and I've really enjoyed how collaborative the work has been, even in playing just a small part in the projects and having joined rather late. Everyone is open to discussing their work (and yours), and excited to deeply engage with the really difficult, complex problem of figuring out how to frame and study ice-ocean interactions.
Tell us about a skill or trait unique to you that you would like to share?
I love making zines, short, cheap-to-produce booklets that often have an artistic element to them. I've used them to teach science communication, explore climate grief, deepen collaborations between artists and scientists, and in short workshops, just for catharsis e.g., just to make something with your hands.
Stay tuned on our social media channels (X, Mastodon, LinkedIn and Facebook) for more of the series of OCEAN:ICE 'Researcher in the Spotlight' articles.