Polsky Research Fellow, 2026
Marija is a third-year student at the University of Chicago studying Geophysical Sciences with a minor in Geographic Information Science. Born and raised in Florida, she developed an early fascination with fluid Earth systems, particularly atmospheric science and ocean dynamics. Driven by the realities of sea-level rise in her home state, and after particularly enjoying an introductory course on The Cryosphere with Professor Meghana Ranganathan, her academic interests expanded to include glaciology.
As a Polsky Research Fellow, Marija worked under Professor Ranganathan on validating a computer model called icegrain, which predicts how ice grains grow and change size deep inside glaciers and ice sheets. Her role started with running sensitivity tests to narrow down which of the model’s parameters actually mattered and where in the model they had the most effect. From there, she explored validation qualitatively, looking at individual parameters and parameter pairs to get a feel for how they behaved. She then moved on to quantitative validation, working out which reasonable range of values for each parameter best fit real data from three different ice cores — GRIP, GISP2, and WAIS Divide. This work was made possible through the invaluable guidance and support of Professor Ranganathan.
“This internship solidified that I desire a research-type career built around iterative, hypothesis-driven work. Debugging the validation pipeline and interpreting sensitivity results made the day-to-day structure of climate research concrete for me in a way coursework alone hadn’t, and I found that iterative process genuinely engaging rather than draining. That confirmation matters for how I plan to move forward, whether that’s continuing into graduate school with a workable technical skill set already in hand, or starting directly in the workforce doing similar research-oriented work in Earth science.”