A Q&A with Geosciences’ Celina Suarez

Celina Suarez, Ph.D.
Associate Professor in the Department of Geosciences

In this conversation, Suarez talks about helping students succeed, understanding “deep time” climate and thermal maximums, the excitement of working on describing a new dinosaur fauna from Arkansas, her love of rock climbing, studying the late Triassic period in Utah and South Africa, and her passion for involving students in this work.

Q: Tell us a little about your research, academic passions and/or role within the college. What excites you about this?

I am an associate professor in the Department of Geosciences and am also the graduate coordinator for the M.S. degree for the geology division of the department, meaning I am everyone’s default first advisor when they come into the M.S. program.

Celina Suarez, Fulbright, faculty, Promotion Tenure

So, my job is to answer advising questions, clear holds, and get new M.S. students quickly connected to a thesis advisor.

I teach three main classes, Geochemisty of Natural Waters, Earth System History, and Geology Field Camp – a six-week course in Montana and one of my favorites because we get students outside looking at geology rather that talking about it in the class room.

I also teach our spring break field trip class and Intro to Paleontology on occasion.

Most of my research of late has been focused on understanding climate in what we call “deep-time” and in particular, time periods in which thermal maximums occur.

Deep-time just means time periods greater than two million years ago. So the time periods that I currently study are the late Triassic extinction event in which a large volcanic eruption increased CO2 concentrations and caused one of the five mass extinctions in Earth History, and time periods in the Cretaceous around 120 to 100 million years ago in which another eruption caused extreme global warming.

This is exciting research because it does have real world application. Projected increases in temperature are on the order of that last seen 30 to 100 million years ago – conditions last seen before the glacial-interglacial period.

Earth history is a natural experiment for what will happen in the future with modern rapid climate change. We’ve seen instances of rapid climate change in the past, it’s recorded in the rock record, as is the plant and animal record, so we can use the rock record to see the environmental effects of rapid climate change and help to predict impacts of modern rapid climate change.

I’m also working on describing a new dinosaur fauna from Arkansas which is quite exciting. Vertebrate paleontology has always been a passion of mine, although technically I’m a geochemist. I merge the two and work on geochemisty of fossils and how that tells us about the past, but this project is my first foray into writing specifically about bones and identifying and describing them.

Q: How long have you been at Fulbright College? What have you enjoyed most about your time here?

I have been at the University of Arkansas for almost seven years, I started in 2012.

I’ve mostly enjoyed working with my colleagues in the department. We have a growing, vibrant department that is excited about research and teaching.

At the same time, we have a more family feel to the department so we all support each other with our work and families.

Q: What do you most hope your students remember from their classes and/or interactions with you?

That depends on if they are in one of my classes or are one of my graduate students.

If you are a student in one of my classes, I hope you come away with enough of an understanding of the subject to be able to solve a problem related to the class subject and know where to find the answers.

For my graduate students, my goal is to train them as researchers and geologists. I hope they learn new skills, learn how to learn, and learn what questions to ask. By the time they leave the M.S. program, they should be able to hold their own in the workforce.

For my Ph.D. students, I like to say that they learn what questions to ask. In other words, that they become successful researchers in their own right and experts in their sub-field of study to the point in which they know what questions should be asked to accomplish the research goal at hand.

Q: What do you like to do during your time outside of the university?

Celina Suarez holding a fossil that was a part of her new dinosaur discovery, the Geminiraptor.

Obviously being a geologist I enjoy spending time outdoors so I love spending time rock climbing. It’s sort of my Zen activity because I have to block out everything and focus only on that.

Arkansas has some great climbs and fairly easy access to them. I enjoy camping with my family and hanging out with them outdoors. My husband and I enjoy traveling and hiking in different places.

I also enjoy trail running, cycling and sometimes swimming.

Q: What’s up next on the horizon for you?

I recently received an NSF grant to work on the late Triassic period in Utah and in South Africa.

I spent a week in South Africa this summer taking a look at the material there and planning with my colleagues at University of Cape Town and University of Witwatersrand. I’m really excited to get out there this coming spring to get some intensive field work in.

We will be looking at the rock layers there and amazing fossil record – of dinosaurs and mammal-like reptiles – and comparing it to localities of similar age in Utah to see how the big volcanic eruptions during that time affected the environment, plants and animals on land.

I’m also excited that I am eligible for an off campus assignment (sabbatical) now that I’ve received tenure.

My current plan would be to do an assignment in the U.K. where I have colleagues at Oxford, Southampton, Natural History Museum of London and Cambridge.

The goal would be to learn new methods at Oxford and Southampton that I could then bring back to the U of A, work on some fossils from the museum and work on new initiatives on understanding carbon’s effect on the earth with colleagues at Cambridge.

I’d also be able to visit my step-daughters who are going to high-school in Ireland. So that’s a personal advantage.

Q: Is there anything else you’d like to add or let readers know?

Just if there are any students out there interested in learning more about this research then I’d be happy to have them contact me – if they’d like to help out on certain aspects of the projects either as a side thing, or as an undergrad research project.

I’d love to have students help.

Celina Suarez, Ph.D.
Associate Professor in the Department of Geosciences