![\"Portratit](\"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/916\/AGSO_F22_FGT_800x596.jpg\")
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Rhode Island is one of the nation\u2019s flatter states, so it\u2019s certainly a change of pace for Fenix Garcia Tigreros, the newest assistant professor at GSO. She recalls the slogan of her native Bogot\u00e1, Colombia: \u201cWe like to say Bogot\u00e1 is 2,600 meters closer to the stars. Not really sure how that translates to feet, but it is pretty high.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perched in the Andes, Bogot\u00e1 is far from the ocean. But Colombia itself isn\u2019t, with its coastline hugged by both the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. Thanks to her father living near the Caribbean Coast in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, the highest coastal mountain range on earth, Garcia Tigreros experienced both surf and sky as a kid.<\/p>\n
These experiences proved formative when she chose to study chemistry at Binghamton University, where, \u201cAll of my undergraduate research projects focused in environmental chemistry,\u201d Garcia Tigreros says. It was through a summer internship at the Smithsonian Institution that she first took serious note of oceanography.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really like being out[side],\u201d Garcia Tigreros says. \u201cIn chem\u00adistry, you\u2019re mostly inside a lab.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fate of an oceanographer is less sequestered. There\u2019s still plenty of lab work, of course, but Garcia Tigreros notes the scenic perks like \u201camazing research cruises.\u201d The cruises may be scenic, but Garcia Tigreros is still looking at the water like a chemist, trying to better understand the dynamics of oceanic methane and CO2 and their relation to climate change. <\/p>\n
Take gas hydrates, where the greenhouse gas methane has accumulated over thousands of years along continental shelves. For her Ph.D. at the University of Rochester, Garcia Tigreros showed \u201clots of interest in where that methane travels.\u201d This deep interest in \u201cthe fate and transformations of methane\u201d briefly led Garcia Tigreros out of oceanography and into the adjacent field of limnology: the study of lakes. <\/p>\n
Well, maybe not so adjacent: \u201cI was like, \u2018Well, lakes are smaller oceans. How different could it be?\u2019 I couldn\u2019t have been more mistaken,\u201d Garcia Tigreros laughs. \u201cLakes are so complex.\u201d<\/p>\n
She learned this as a post doc at the University of Wash\u00adington and while studying carbon cycling and emissions in arctic lakes with National Aeronautics and Space Administration\u2019s Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment program, an experience that offered lessons in hydrology, topography and land dynamics\u2014topics normally slighted in her ocean work. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was still working to understand how natural and anthro\u00adpogenic changes are altering long-term carbon stores like permafrost,\u201d Garcia Tigreros says. <\/p>\n
Climate change probably won\u2019t come to a full stop, but it can be mitigated. Hence Garcia Tigreros\u2019 excitement to teach \u201cClimate Change and the Oceans\u201d at GSO. <\/p>\n
\u201cFuture generations can develop new methods, new technologies, that can really help [mitigate climate change.] I think that would be a huge win for the planet,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Seasons in the U.S. can make climate change less obvious, Garcia Tigreros offers. In Colombia, meanwhile, vegetation and agriculture have visibly changed in her lifetime.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt strikes me every time I go back,\u201d she says, giving the example of coffee beans, once grown only in Colombia\u2019s warmer climes but now cultivated much more widely.<\/p>\n
These dramatic changes are enough to make Garcia Tigreros go \u201cWow,\u201d the same reaction she has to the transitions between mountains and sea in the Colombian landscape. \u201cA very beautiful place,\u201d Garcia Tigreros says. A place, she would surely agree, worth preserving. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fenix Garcia Tigreros, Assistant Professor of Oceanography By Alexander Castro Rhode Island is one of the nation\u2019s flatter states, so it\u2019s certainly a change of pace for Fenix Garcia Tigreros, the newest assistant professor at GSO. She recalls the slogan of her native Bogot\u00e1, Colombia: \u201cWe like to say Bogot\u00e1 is 2,600 meters closer to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2120,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7,1987],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-178743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aboard-gso","category-publications"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178743"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":180915,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178743\/revisions\/180915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}