Samuel Patrick Dennis Birch

Samuel Patrick Dennis Birch is an Assistant Professor of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences at Brown University. His research focuses on understanding planetary surface processes and climate evolution across the Solar System using spacecraft observations, mathematical models, and laboratory experiments.

• PhD in Planetary Sciences (2017), Cornell University
• B.A. in Geophysics (2004), University of California, Berkeley

Research interests include planetary hydrology, icy world dynamics, and comparative landscape evolution. His group treats planetary bodies as natural experiments to uncover fundamental physics of surface-climate interactions.

He received the 51 Pegasi b Research Fellowship from the Heising-Simons Foundation for work at MIT under Taylor Perron. He teaches EEPS 1390 - Planetary Surface Processes and leads the samlab research group at Brown.