Last Thursday I met with Annie Boucher, an enthusiastic graduate student who is part of the Earth Sciences program at the University of Maine. Brooklyn-born Annie is still assimilating herself to the harsh Maine environment, but she doesn’t really mind the snow, being well adjusted to even colder places. Glaciers are her focus after all, and it doesn’t get much colder than that. Boucher has had great experience with glaciers, particularly the ones of South-East Alaska. For the past three summers, she has taken part in the Juneau Icefield Research Program (JIRP), an educational program for students at the upper level high school to college graduate level that spends eight weeks traversing the glaciers outside Juneau while conducting research and learning expeditionary skills. All these skills will come in handy for her as this is where her research will be focused.
Annie Boucher skiing on Taku Glacier in Juneau, Alaska.
As a graduate student, the goal of her research is to study the interactions between tectonics, climate and erosion in South-Eastern Alaska. Currently not a lot is known about the tectonics of this area, so she hopes her research will provide the foundation for understanding these factors. What also makes this area even more appealing is that it not only has some of the fastest moving glaciers, but it also has the most active tectonics. This means that there is plenty more to learn about the rates of erosion on particular parts of the bedrock, which if known will make it easier for researchers to create more accurate models as they try to predict what will happen to the region in the future.
Annie Boucher (blue) digs a snow pit to carry out mass-balance measurements within a glacier.
This summer Boucher will combine her work with JIRP with gathering data for her graduate research. She is buzzing with excitement to get back on the glacier again and just last week purchased some gear for the trip. She was also excited to be joined by a couple of her good friends, who will be accompanying her on the trip. “Funnily enough two great guys whom I’m great friends with will be joining me this summer in Juneau, and I’m really looking forward to sharing this experience with them,” she told the Observer. What Boucher really enjoys about this area of research is that the interactions between the glaciers and the rock are, at the most basic level, “simple, immediate and intuitive”. The methods she described require a combination of different fields, including the application of engineering concepts to glaciology. While it has certainly proved difficult at times, she feels that it is a challenge she is more than capable of handling. “This is a new process, applying these particular [engineering] methods to glacial erosion,” she said. “So when you start to see results, you feel excited about being at the front of this research.” Although she has been faced with what she calls the “steep icy learning slope” of computer modeling and
Annie working on computer modeling.
programming, she remains confident in her ability and described how people within the department have been more than willing to offer a helping hand when she needed it. She speaks particularly highly of her adviser, Dr. Peter Koons, highlighting how his approach of questioning everything is really pushing her to improve her critical thinking and her approach to various problems. Boucher is a graduate student who shows great enthusiasm for her field of work so I can definitely see her work being key in uncovering some of the mystery that still exists around tectonics and climate. With the glaciers in this area retreating quite rapidly, this is definitely an area where we will see some interesting discoveries, so we will be keeping a close eye on her research project.
-Tadhg Moore.
See the Podcast of the full interview here
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