Rate My Professor Emily Eidam

Emily Eidam serves as Associate Professor in the Oceanography unit within the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University. She directs the Coastal & Fluvial Sediment Dynamics Lab, focusing on sediment transport processes and rates of deposition and accumulation across riverine, coastal, continental shelf, and slope environments. Her interdisciplinary research integrates marine geology, sedimentology, coastal oceanography, and coastal engineering, utilizing tools from oceanographers, geochemists, and geologists. Much of this work centers on Arctic and sub-Arctic regions, where declining sea ice and increasing wave energy drive changes in sediment dispersal through fluvial systems and reworking on continental shelves. Eidam synthesizes data from oceanographic sensors, isotope geochronology, and remote sensing to predict sediment pathways, with applications to coastal evolution models, nutrient and contaminant transport, and geologic resource formation.

Eidam earned her Ph.D. in Oceanography from the University of Washington in 2017, with a dissertation on processes and records of coastal sediment dispersal in contrasting deltaic systems, and an M.S. in Oceanography from the same university in 2013. She holds B.S. degrees in Geological Sciences (2010, magna cum laude) and Civil Engineering (2008, magna cum laude) from the University of Alaska Anchorage. Her professional appointments include Assistant Professor at Oregon State University (2022–present, promoted to Associate Professor), Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2018–2022), Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Oregon (2017–2018), and research and teaching assistant positions at the University of Washington (2011–2017). Key publications encompass "Direct observations of submarine melt and subsurface geometry at a tidewater glacier" (Science, 2019), "Shifting sediment dynamics in the Coos Bay Estuary in response to 150 years of modification" (JGR-Oceans, 2021), "Morainal bank evolution and controls on terminus dynamics during a tidewater glacier stillstand" (JGR-Earth Surface, 2020), and "Variability of sediment accumulation rates in an Antarctic fjord" (Geophysical Research Letters, 2019). She advises graduate students on projects including suspended sediment distribution in Greenland fjords and Arctic coastal dynamics, and reviews for journals such as JGR-Oceans, Marine Geology, and Continental Shelf Research.