Dr. Carolyn Merry Named Department Chair

Dr. Carolyn Merry has been named Chair of the Deparment of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Geodetic Science at the Ohio State College of Engineering. Dr. Merry began her new appointment on July 1, 2005; she joined the Ohio State University in 1988 and is also a professor and interim director of Ohio State's Center for Mapping.

Merry's research and teaching interests include remote sensing, GIS applications, and surveying. Current projects include analyzing high-tech 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 form 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 evalute and map a tractor train traverse route from McMourdo Station to the South Pole, Antarctica.

Merry, a resident of Hilliard, Ohio, earned her doctoral degree in civil engineering from the Univerity 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 Region Research Engineering Laboratory in New Hampshire as a research physical scientist and geologist.