Paula Perilla-Castillo

Paula was born in Bogota, Colombia.  Bogota, the national capital of Colombia, is located on the Altiplano Cundiboyacense plateau and surrounded by the mountains of the Eastern Cordillera of the Andes. Looking for an exciting career that would allow her to explore the mountains that inspired her, Paula earned a B.S. in Geology from the National University of Colombia in 2013. Upon graduation, Paula worked in Geological Consulting in Bogotá, completing hydrogeological and geohazards assessments, soil contaminant studies, and oil & gas risk assessments related to groundwater vulnerability. 

In 2015, Paula moved to the United States of America to pursue a M.S. in Geology from the University of Oklahoma, where she did research with the Oklahoma Geological Survey. Paula’s research focused on injection of produced water in the Arbuckle Group and the increasing seismicity that the state has been experiencing since 2008. Paula’s M.S. thesis was a characterization of the Arbuckle Group in Oklahoma using pressure-monitoring of deep wells and Earth tide theory, aiming to provide more accurate hydrogeological parameters for future modeling. In 2017, Paula enrolled in the Ph.D. program at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Her Ph.D. research focused on paleoflood studies in the Upper Tennessee River basin and included a multidisciplinary approach involving sedimentology, geochronology, soil science, and geochemistry. 

Before her teaching position at Whitman, Paula was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Sedimentology at Pomona College in Claremont, CA. There she taught courses in Sedimentology, Hydrogeology, Earth History, Introduction to Geology, and Environmental Studies. Paula also enjoyed mentoring undergraduate students working on senior thesis projects in Hydrology, Sedimentology, and Geochemistry.

Paula’s research interests combine the fields of paleohydrology, paleoclimatology, hydrogeology, environmental sciences, soil formation processes, Quaternary geology, and water resources management. She hopes to continue doing research building on the foundations of her Ph.D. research integrating information from paleoclimate, paleoenvironments, and paleohydrology to study how the planet has changed over geologic time. Paula is also interested in the human factor of environmental studies, studying how water, climate, and environmental changes shaped the evolution and development of communities in the past, and how the planet will continue to evolve as a complex and dynamic environment.