Alexandra Kirsch
For a technical, domain specific audience
This page includes research projects, papers, and presentations from my time as a geology student. It also includes a recent rhetoric research paper that I co-authored for the journal Discourse & Society.​
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This page also highlights two academic papers I wrote in grad school, each of which examine case-studies of how scientific information is communicated to public, non-technical audiences, and how this communication can shape public opinion and action or inaction.​
Senior Capstone
Examining the Effectiveness of Limestone Leach Beds in Treating Acid Mine Drainage in Coe Hollow of the Monday Creek Watershed
May 2020
Honors Thesis
Pittsburgh’s Identity: Investigating the Relationship between Geography, Geology and the City’s Social Development
May 2020
NASA Research Project
Rapid Crystal Growth in the Solar System's Slowest Cooled Magma? Investigating the Paradox of Olivine P-Enrichment in Troctolite 76535 Parent Melt with Laboratory Crystallization Experiments
2018
Discourse & Society
Sustaining or overcoming distance in representations of U.S. drone strikes
My primary contribution to this paper was creating the graphical representations of language used in reports of drone strikes.
March 2024
Academic Papers
As all grad students must, I wrote a ton of essays and smaller research papers, but two of them stand out.
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They showcase my knowledge of science and of the importance of accurate, timely, and relevant scientific communication. One paper examines B.P.'s use of conceptual metaphors in articles reflecting on the 2010 oil spill. And the other examines the rhetorical situation between scientists and the public preceding the Mt. St. Helens eruption in 1980.