UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAMS IN

Hofstra students are encouraged to develop a research projectconduct research with a faculty mentor for degree credit, departmental honors work, or experience. Many courses are also structured around include built-in research projects, and students often present their work on campus and at regional and at national conferences such as the Geological Society of America and American Meteorological Society. Recent projects explore storm and volcanic hazards,fossil crocodilians, meteorites,  dinosaur trackways, soil contamination, drone-based mapping, and mineral analysis. Students can also join Sigma Gamma Epsilon, the national Earth science honor society.

Hofstra students travel near and far to conduct hands-on research in the field, for example, mappling bedrock in upstate NY, sampling groundwater and soil for contamination on Long Island, and coring coastal marshes for evidence of ancient hurricanes. Field trips have taken Hofstra students to New England, Arizona, Wyoming, Greece, and Ecuador.

Hear from geology student William Jude Hart and Professor J. Bret Bennington as they discuss their research for dinosaurs and other on the Long Island Cretaceous age fossils Project, where they study sediment and microfossils on Long Island.

“We were the doctors there to give the volcanos their checkup,” – Associate Professor Antonios Marsellos, an expert in geohazards, who leads annual summer expeditions to conduct fieldwork in his native Greece. Dr. Marsellos and his students deploy drones and ground-based monitoring stations to collect data that might aid in the prediction of volcanic eruptions.

The students in Professor Antonios Marsellos’ Geohazards course spent several months studying a problem that has vexed scientists for centuries: how to help communities predict and prepare for flooding along the Mohawk River in Upstate New York. However, it was a chance encounter during a trip to a conference to present their research that drove home the value of their work.

It’s one thing to learn about Charles Darwin’s voyage on the HMS Beagle in a classroom and quite another to join him on his journey. That’s what Hofstra students do on their January session study abroad trip to the Galápagos Islands.

Meterologist Jase Bernhardt, assistant professor in the Department of Geology, Environment, and Sustainability, and his students are studying whether using virtual reality simulations of hurricanes will make coastal residents more likely to heed storm warnings and evacuate.