Katy Barnhart

Katy Barnhart received her B.S.E. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Princeton University and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Geological Sciences from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Although she has primarily trained as a geologist, Dr. Barnhart is also interested in intersections and interactions between scientists, the public, the media, and policy makers. This interest has brought her to the Annenberg Public Policy Center to join the Science of Science Communication research area as a postdoctoral fellow. Her research in the earth sciences focuses on the Arctic environment and how landscapes evolve over a variety of timescales, from days to millions of years. Her Ph.D. research, supervised by Dr. Robert Anderson, used a combination of field observations, satellite-derived datasets, climate model output, and numerical modeling of surface processes to understand modern sea ice change and the associated impacts on rapidly eroding ice-rich permafrost coasts. While pursuing her doctorate, Dr. Barnhart was involved in field expeditions to study coastal erosion on the North Slope of Alaska, glacial sliding and hydrology on the Kennicott Glacier in southeast Alaska, and river discharge into fjords in southwestern Greenland. She has also studied metamorphic petrology and structural geology to understand the mechanisms of continental crust formation.