Noah Snyder, assistant professor, geology

Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Specialization: Earth surface processes

Representative publication: “Importance of a Stochastic Distribution of Floods and Erosion Thresholds in the Bedrock River Incision Problem,” Journal of Geophysical Research

My main research interest is understanding how rivers respond to perturbations, which can range from the long-term changes related to tectonic processes to short-term processes like dam construction. I grew up on a good-sized creek in Ithaca, New York. I didn’t go to college thinking, ‘I’m going to be a fluvial geomorphologist’ but it all makes sense when I consider the time I spent thinking about that stream.

I got into geology for the fieldwork. I just got hooked. When I was 10, a flood wiped out the bridge that connected us to Ithaca, and I wound up studying that flood as a doctoral candidate, taking measurements just downstream from the house where I grew up. Today I’m particularly interested in studying how New England rivers respond to the removal of old dams. Rivers are a great thing to study: environmental issues, social issues, history. They do it all.