AVÀÇ

Professor & Chair

Physical Geographer/Sustainability

North Science 329A

(510) 885-3155

michael.lee@csueastbay.edu | Faculty Profile

Dr. Michael Lee is an educator and consultant specializing in natural resources and sustainable development. He has a Ph.D. in physical geography/hydrology from the London School of Economics and Political Science where his research focused on computer modelling of arid watershed runoff harvesting systems. He has over 30 years of experience in the assessment, management and protection of natural resources with an emphasis on water resources, watersheds natural resources and food systems. He has worked in both urban and rural areas as a researcher, teacher and consultant in Central America, Africa, Europe and the United States. Since 1996, he has taught at the California State University (CSU) East Bay where he is most active in the areas of natural resources management, water management, global change and sustainable development. He has a certificate in online teaching and has also taught in the online MS program for prospective educators and on green building topics in the Construction Management program. He was the Visiting Scientist at the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories in 2016-17 and the Resident Director of International Programs in Spain for the CSU in 2017-18. He was formerly Chair of the Dept. of Anthropology, Geography and Environmental Studies.

Assistant Professor

North Science 352

(510) 885-3433

emilio.grande@csueastbay.edu | 

Dr. Emilio Grande (he/him/his) studies hydrology and biochemistry from catchment headwater to coastal groundwater. He is interested in understanding how rainfall becomes runoff. The pathways water takes through landscapes and the biogeochemical implications of these pathways from headwater catchments to the coastal ocean. He integrates field and quantitative analyses to investigate rainfall-runoff relationships and surface water- groundwater exchanges across a broad range of spatial and temporal scales and environmental settings. He uses and integrates knowledge from several disciplines to address the numerous challenges at the terrestrial-marine interface. Currently, these challenges include hydrology, remote sensing, and biogeochemistry. In the future, he intends to grow his research efforts to include related socio-economic issues in his investigation. Dr. Grande is a CSUEB alumnus. He received a B.S. and a M.S. in Geology from the Earth and Environmental Sciences department in 2017 and 2019, respectively. He received his Ph.D. in Earth Sciences from the University of California Santa Cruz in 2022. He is always looking for interested undergraduate and graduate students. Contact him for more information.
Twitter: @egrandeHYDRO

Associate Professor

Biogeochemistry, Greenhouse Gas Measurements

North Science 351

(510) 885-4068

patty.oikawa@csueastbay.edu | |

Dr. Patty Oikawa specializes in biogeochemistry and greenhouse gas measurements. She is currently studying how wetland restoration in the Bay Area and Sacramento Delta can be used to mitigate climate change. Dr. Oikawa received her B.S. in Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology at UC Santa Barbara before moving to the east coast for graduate school. She received her PhD in Biology from the University of Virginia in 2011 on trace gas emissions from leaves and plant carbon cycling. She then moved back to California for a postdoctoral position at UC Riverside where she studied nitrogen oxide emissions from high temperature agricultural systems and how they influence air quality. Finally, Dr. Oikawa received a USDA Postdoctoral Fellowship to measure and model greenhouse gas exchange in restored wetlands in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta at UC Berkeley. She joined the AVÀÇ faculty in 2016 and is currently accepting undergraduate and graduate students in her lab. Please contact her for more information.

Assistant Professor

Environmental Studies

North Science 253

(510) 885-3160

antonio.romanalcala@csueastbay.edu | Faculty Profile

Associate Professor

Fire Ecology

Meiklejohn Hall

(510) 885-3164

tony.marksblock@csueastbay.edu | Faculty Profile

Dr. Tony Marks-Block is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of History and Global Cultures and Earth, Environmental and Sustainability Sciences at CSU East Bay. He is an ecological anthropologist who conducts research at the nexus of anthropogenic (prescribed) fire, small-scale subsistence practices, Indigenous sovereignty movements and the political ecology of land management in California. Through funding from the National Science Foundation, the Joint Fire Science Program and Stanford University, he collaborated with and learned from Karuk and Yurok peoples in northwestern California to complete his PhD on cultural burning. Dr. Marks-Block enjoys teaching critical pyrogeography, human ecology, and political ecology, as well as applied and community-engaged anthropological methods.

Emeritus Professor

Isotope Hydrology, Contaminant Transport

N336A

(510) 885-2491

jean.moran@csueastbay.edu |

Dr. Jean Moran's research focuses on applying naturally-occurring and introduced isotopes to examine geochemical and transport processes during recharge and groundwater transport. Over the last 20 years, she has led numerous projects on groundwater recharge and contamination vulnerability, water quality including fate and transport of nitrate, and surface water-groundwater interaction under the Groundwater Ambient Monitoring and Assessment program sponsored by the California State Water Resources Control Board. Dr. Moran has a Ph.D. in Geochemistry from the University of Rochester, Bachelor’s degrees in Physics and Geology from the University of Rochester and a Master’s degree in Geophysics from the University of Washington. She has been an author on more than 50 peer-reviewed publications. Graduate and undergraduate students are fully integrated in the research group she leads, and carry out field work, laboratory analyses, GIS, and data interpretation.

Emeritus Professor

North Science 353

(510) 885-3083

luther.strayer@csueastbay.edu 

Dr. Luther Strayer is a structural geologist. His research is currently focused on seismic surveying in local fault zones including the Hayward and Chabot faults.

Department Technician 

North Science 341

(510) 885-3440

stephanie.gunter@csueastbay.edu 

Lecturer of Earth and Environmental Sciences

North Science - N331

kelly.decker@csueastbay.edu 

Lecturer of Geology

North Science - N331

michelle.mcmahon@csueastbay.edu 

Lecturer of Earth and Environmental Sciences

North Science - N331

lora.teitler@csueastbay.edu

Lecturer of Earth and Environmental Sciences

North Science - N350

(510) 885-3425

dorothee.rebscher@csueastbay.edu

Dr. Dorothee Rebscher received a PhD in geophysics and a diploma in physics from the University of Bonn, Germany. 
Before joining CSUEB, Dorothee worked in academia and for governmental organizations in the US and Europe. Her geoscientific experience includes field, laboratory, and computational work. As a participant or lead of multinational and interdisciplinary teams, she contributed to volcanology, carbon sequestration, atmospheric physics, environmental science, safe disposal of radioactive waste, and other energy related topics. At CSUEB, she teaches Earth Systems Science, Physical and Environmental Geology, Mineralogy and Optical Crystallography, and Professional Ethics.

Please contact her via email or in person on CSUEB's campus for more information.

LECTURER OF EARTH, ENVIRONMENTAL AND SUSTAINABILITY SCIENCES

Office: North Science 350

(510) 885-3439

elena.givental@csueastbay.edu | Faculty Profile

LECTURER OF EARTH, ENVIRONMENTAL AND SUSTAINABILITY SCIENCES

Office: North Science 351

ellen.woodard@csueastbay.edu

Ph.D., U.C. Berkeley (Wildland Resource Science)

Interests: natural resource management, field methods, biogeography, wildlife conservation strategies

Courses: Applied Field Studies, Environmental Impact Analysis, Energy & Society, California

LECTURER OF EARTH, ENVIRONMENTAL AND SUSTAINABILITY SCIENCES

Office: North Science 331

jory.lerback@csueastbay.edu

Dr. Jory Chapin Lerback is a part-time lecturer at AVÀÇ, teaching Geographical Information Systems. By day, she is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where they apply isotope hydrology and remote sensing methods to track groundwater resources through managed aquifer recharge projects, groundwater dependent ecosystems, and mountainous headwater catchments.

Previously, Lerback was a UC Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow at UCLA in the Department of Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences, the American Indian Studies Center, and the Center for Diverse Leadership in Science. She earned her PhD from the University of Utah Department of Geology and Geophysics and Center for Global Change and Sustainability in 2021. Their Bachelor of Arts in Earth Science is from Franklin and Marshall College (2013), and they completed core STEM courses at Northern Virginia Community College. Before graduate school, Lerback worked in groundwater consulting and as a data analyst at the American Geophysical Union in Washington, DC.

Their current research describes connections between atmospheric processes, surface waters, and groundwaters to help water managers improve planning for floods and droughts.

Courses: Geographical Information Systems