Aviva Intveld

I am a third-year PhD candidate with Professor Gisela Winckler. I use U and Th isotopes to investigate atmospheric circulation during warmer-than-present periods of the earth’s past. Currently, my main focus is reconstructing the strength and position of the Southern Hemisphere Westerlies from the Last Interglacial to present.

During summer 2025, I had the wonderful opportunity to sail aboard the R/V Roger Revelle as part of cruise RR2504 (Sediment Exchange Along the Labrador Sea), during which I led aerosol sampling operations and was part of the sediment multicorer operations team. Previously, I received my Bachelor of Science in Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at MIT in 2023 and my MPhil in Earth Sciences as a Gates-Cambridge Scholar at the University of Cambridge in 2024. My master's thesis paired paleoclimate, geochemistry, and archaeology to reconstruct a high-resolution speleothem-based paleoclimate record of the Postclassic Maya capital of Mayapán. 

I am passionate about policy-actionable science and museum-based learning, and help run a volunteer-based Earth Science lecture series at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.