SACCOM Committee Members

Lewis's research and teaching focuses on understanding the nature and dynamics of Quaternary paleoenvironmental change and landscape evolution, environmental geology and natural hazards along active plate margins. Lewis has concentrated his efforts on two major geologic-geographic regions: 1) the Himalayan-Tibetan orogen; and 2) the western Cordilleras of North and South America. This is because these regions provide some of the best natural laboratories for understanding the dynamics of geomorphic, tectonic and climatic processes, and ultimately they provide analogs for understanding the evolution of many ancient plate boundaries. Lewis has also undertaken research in other regions, including the American Midwest, Egypt, Venezuela, Morocco, Trinidad, Thailand, Yemen, Azerbaijan and the United Kingdom.

My academic credentials include degrees in Archaeology, Geography, and Environmental Studies. I have also received trainings in geoarchaeology, micromorphology, and soil analysis. My interest in human-environment interactions and my trainings, qualify me to be an expert in the aforementioned domains. Currently, I am working on geological and archaeological stratigraphy spanning all chronologies using micromorphological techniques.

I’m a postdoctoral researcher, with expertise in the application and

development of trapped charge techniques of luminescence and electron spin

resonance, not only as classical dating methods but also as a provenance tool.

My primary research interests lie in the application of these techniques to gain

insight into the timing, rates and processes of landscape-climate interaction

during the Quaternary.

Yang’s research focuses on palaeoclimate reconstruction utilizing aeolian deposits. He has been working intensively in the loess areas of northern China and southern Tajikistan, where sedimentological and geochemical records were obtained as his primary tools to reconstruct palaeoenvironment. Most of his work to date has involved studies of the shift in the Asian monsoonal rainbelt during past warm intervals (e.g., the Quaternary interglacials and Pliocene warm periods). 

Jerry McManus is a Senior Staff member of the Geochemistry Division of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, and Professor and Associate Chair of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences of Columbia University. His research primarily utilizes deep-sea sediments and is focused on reconstructing natural variability in the Earth’s climate and the large-scale ocean circulation, with a special focus on the role that the ocean plays in abrupt climate change.

CH-QUAT (Swiss Quaternary Society)