Postdoctoral Research Associate
Natalia Varela (BS, PhD) is a postdoctoral researcher from Chile who received her PhD at Virginia Tech in 2023. Her research focuses on physical sedimentology applied to paleoceanography in high latitudes, with an emphasis on deep-marine processes like turbidity currents. Her PhD work was based on marine cores from IODP (International Ocean Discovery Program) expeditions in Antarctica and the North Atlantic, analyzing grain size and other bed-morphometrics. Now, she is working on circum-Antarctic records of subglacial meltwater discharge into the ocean since 20,000 (or so) years ago, as well as best practices in the field of glacial-marine sedimentology. Besides turbidites and sediments, she enjoys hanging out with her pets, hiking, and thrifting.