ESVI REU Program 2025

The 2025 ESVI REU cohort of participating students from across the US.

This was our 8th summer of the ESVI NSF/REU site program. Our program offers undergraduate students a unique opportunity to visit Hawai‘i and work with individual faculty mentors on cutting edge research projects. This year we hosted 10 undergraduate researchers that spent nine weeks working on a research project with their individual mentor or mentor team. 

The program concluded with a joint research symposium with other summer research programs on the UHM campus, sponsored by the 2025 UHM SURE Program.

Click on the small poster images below to see a larger version.

Kai Aiona-Agra, Seattle University 
ESVI Mentor: Chris Wall
Influence of Ploidy State on Physiology and Thermal Stress Responses in the Hawaiian Coral Pocillopora Acuta

Chesnie Barnes, Berea College 
ESVI Mentor: Chris Shuler
Groundwater Quality and Source Attribution in the Kāluawai of Kalaeloa, Hawaiʻi

Reginald Delaney Jr., University of Texas San Antonio 
ESVI Mentor: Peter Kannberg
Currents in the Ocean: Navigating the Noise in Marine Electromagnetic Surveys

Kalina Heimuli, Kansas State University 
ESVI Mentors: Sara Kahanamoku-Meyer, Haunani Kane, Kainalu Steward
Disappearing Islands: Tracing Geo-Ecological Island Resilience Following Major Storm Events at Lalo Atoll, Hawaiʻi

Liana Krasnoff, Skidmore College 
ESVI Mentors: Xiaolong Geng, Hong Zhang
Field Investigation of Swash-Induced Seawater-Groundwater Interactions Along the Beaches of Oʻahu, Hawaii

Nathan Moore, Vermont State University 
ESVI Mentor: Alison Nugent
Assessing Flash Flood Vulnerability on Maui Through Soil Moisture Response

Miranda Smith-Polette, University of Texas at El Paso 
ESVI Mentors: Helen Janiszewski, Sin-Mei Wu
Preliminary Focal Mechanism Solutions for Upper Mantle Earthquakes During the 2022 Pāhala Seismic Swarm, Island of Hawaiʻi

Sarah Rawlinson, University of Maryland Eastern Shore 
ESVI Mentor: Rita García Seoane, Brian Popp
Resolving Micronekton Feeding Ecology in the Hawaiian Mesopelagic Using Compound-Specific Isotope

Peter Scott, University of Hawaii Windward Community College 
ESVI Mentor: Arjun Aryal, Amir Haroon
Application of Electrical Resistivity and Induced Polarization to Assess Localized Subsidence on Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi

Nathan Stamford, Bucknell University 
ESVI Mentor: Giuseppe Torri
An Analysis of Volcanic Lightning and its Controlling Factors