CEE Alumni Dr. Carolyn Merry Named Chair At Ohio State University

The Ohio State University College of Engineering is pleased to announce that Dr. Carolyn Merry has been named chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Geodetic Science.

Merry’s research and teaching interests include remote sensing, GIS applications and surveying. Current projects include analyzing high resolution imagery to map and count vehicles along highways as part of the National Consortium on "Remote Sensing in Transportation Flows" initiative at Ohio State; mapping temperatures, chlorophyll and surface turbidity patterns from AVHRR and SeaWiFS satellite data for use in predicting water quality; preparing land use/land cover maps along the coast of Lake Erie for use in developing a time-series of land cover change; and using Landsat-7 and digital terrain data for hydrologic engineering applications as part of the OhioView Consortium. Past research has included using satellite imagery to evaluate and map a tractor train traverse route from McMurdo Station to the South Pole, Antarctica.

A professor and interim director of Ohio State’s Center for Mapping, she joined Ohio State in 1988. Merry earned her doctoral degree in civil engineering from the University of Maryland, her master’s degree in geology from Dartmouth College and her bachelor’s degree in geology from Edinboro State College. Before joining Ohio State, she worked for 15 years at the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory in New Hampshire as a research physical scientist and geologist.

Published July 31, 2005