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Kyra H. Adams (Kim)

Photo of Kyra Adams (Kim)

Address:

4800 Oak Grove Drive
M/S 300-323

Pasadena, CA 91109

Curriculum Vitae:

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Website:

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Member of:

Earth Science

Assistant Section Manager

Employed By

Caltech/JPL

Biography

Dr. Kyra Adams (née Kim) was born and raised in South Korea. Her research interests span coastal hydrology, nearshore biogeochemistry, and groundwater modeling. She obtained her Bachelor of Science degree in Geology with Special Honors and Bachelor of Art in Music, at the University of Texas at Austin in 2013. Dr. Adams pursued her doctoral study in hydrogeology at the University of Delaware, where she focused on freshwater-seawater interactions in sandy beaches using field sampling, laboratory experiments, and numerical modeling. In 2019 and joined JPL as a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow to work on groundwater depletion and subsidence in the Central Valley using GRACE and Sentinel-1. As of 2022 she has joined the JPL Sea Level and Ice Group as a Research Scientist. Her current research focuses on coastal freshwater-saltwater processes and filling the global coastal measurement gap by ways of model development and data synthesis.

Education

  • Ph.D. Geology, University of Delaware, 2019
  • B.S. General Geology with High Honors, University of Texas at Austin, 2013
  • B.A. Music, University of Texas at Austin, 2013

Professional Experience

  • Earth Science Assistant Section Manager, 2024-current
  • JPL Research Scientist, 2022-current
  • JPL Postdoctoral Fellow, 2021-2022
  • NASA Postdoctoral Fellow, 2019-2021
  • Delaware Environmental Institute Fellow, 2017-2019

Research Interests

  • Coastal hydrogeology & coastal biogeochemistry
  • Coastal resiliency and educational outreach
  • Groundwater modeling and data integration
  • Freshwater-saline water interfaces on Earth and Mars

Selected Awards

  • AWRA Kenneth J. Lanfear Award for Outstanding Technology Papers 2022
  • NASA Postdoctoral Fellowship 2019
  • Delaware Environmental Institute Fellowship 2017
  • Univ. of Delaware Professional Development Award 2015
  • Univ. of Delaware Professional Development Award 2014
  • Wayne Franklin Bowman Endowed Presidential Scholarship 2012

Selected Publications

  1. NASA Sea Level Change Team; Adams, K.; C. Blackwood; R. Cullather; B. Hamlington; E. Heijkoop; K. Karnauskas; R. Kopp; E. Larour; T. Lee; R.S. Nerem; S. Nowicki; C. Piecuch; R. Ray; D. Rounce; P. Thompson; N. Vinogradova; O. Wang; M. Willis, Assessment of Sea Level Rise and Associated Impacts for Tuvalu, N-SLCT-2023-01 Technical Report, http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8069320.
  2. Hamlington, B.; A. Tripathi; D. Rounce; M. Weathers; K. Adams; C. Blackwood;…R. Kopp (2023), Satellite Monitoring for Coastal Dynamic Adaptation Policy Pathways, Climate Risk Management, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crm.2023.100555.
  3. Liu, P.W.; J. Famiglietti; A. Purdy; K. Adams (Kim); A. McEvoy; J. Reager; R. Bindlish; D. Wiese; M. Rodell, and C. David (2022), Nearly two decades of groundwater storage variations in California’s Central Valley from GRACE and GRACE-FO, Nature Communications, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-35582-x.
  4. Adams, K.H., Reager, J.T., Rosen, P., Wiese, D.N., Farr, T.G., Rao, S., Haines, B.J., Argus, D.F., Liu, Z., Smith, R. and Famiglietti, J.S., 2022. Remote Sensing of Groundwater: Current Capabilities and Future Directions. Water Resources Research, p.e2022WR032219, http://doi.org/10.1029/2022WR032219.
  5. Kim, K.; J. Heiss; W. Ullman; H. Michael; W. Cai, Seasonal variation in dissolved inorganic carbon and total alkalinity fluxes across a shallow sandy beach aquifer: temperature and hydrological controls, submitted to Frontiers in Marine Science, https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2022.856281.
  6. Kim, K. (2022), To pursue a career in science, I had to buck cultural expectations, Science, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.caredit.abq3008.
  7. Vasco, D.; K. Kim; T. Farr; J. Reager; D. Bekaert; S. Singh; J. Rutqvist; H. Beaudoing (2022) Using Sentinel-1 and GRACE satellite data to monitor the long- and short-term hydrological variations within the Tulare Basin, California, Nature Scientific Reports, www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-07650-1.
  8. Kim, K & J. Heiss, Methods in capturing the spatiotemporal dynamics of flow and biogeochemical reactivity in beach aquifers: A review (2021), invited, Water, https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/13/6/782.
  9. Kim, K.; Z. Liu; M. Rodell; H. Beaudoing;… J. Reager (2020), An evaluation of remotely sensed and in-situ data sufficiency for SGMA-scale groundwater studies in the Central Valley, California, invited, Journal of American Water Resources Association, https://doi.org/10.1111/1752-1688.12898, Kenneth J. Lanfear Award.
  10. Kim, K.; J. Heiss; X. Geng; H. Michael (2020), Modeling hydrologic controls on particulate organic carbon contributions to beach aquifer biogeochemical reactivity, Water Resources Research, 56(10), https://doi.org/10.1029/2020WR027306.
  11. Kim, K.; H. Michael; E. Field; W. Ullman (2019), Hydrologic shifts create complex transient distributions of particulate organic carbon and biogeochemical responses in beach aquifers, Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, https://doi.org/10.1029/2019JG005114.
  12. Kim, K.; J. Heiss; H. Michael; W. Cai; T. Laattoe; V. Post; W. Ullman (2017), Spatial patterns of groundwater biogeochemical reactivity in an intertidal beach aquifer, Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, 122(10): 2548-2562, https://doi.org/10.1002/2017JG003943, EOS Research Highlight.