Active Research Projects

Designing portable sonar systems to map small, hazardous, remote, or blackwater bodies of water that are missing from existing bathymetric datasets.

Many submerged terrains may preserve evidence of past human activity, geological processes, and fossil deposits that remain invisible to conventional surface surveys.

Investigating early human occupation in Michigan's Upper Peninsula by combining published Paleoindian site evidence, local artifact histories, photogrammetric documentation, geology, LiDAR, and predictive landscape modeling.

A small number of formally documented sites contrasts with the volume of local reports, private collections, and long-standing accounts of early-style lithic finds across the region.

Using machine learning, remote sensing, local knowledge, and field investigation to identify sinkhole features that may preserve archaeological or paleontological evidence in the Woodville Karst Plain.

Known sites such as Page-Ladson demonstrate that sinkholes and related karst features can preserve traces of ancient environments, extinct fauna, and possibly very early human activity.

Investigating likely locations of early human occupation in western Michigan by modeling post-glacial landscapes, river corridors, resource zones, and find patterns from nearby early Paleoindian and near-Clovis-period discoveries.

As the Laurentide Ice Sheet retreated, newly exposed landscapes in western Michigan would have opened rapidly to plants, animals, and eventually people. Recent discoveries in Lower Michigan and the broader Great Lakes region suggest the earliest chapters of human occupation remain incompletely documented.