Assistant Professor of Geology
Education
- Ph.D., Environmental Science and Management, Montclair State University, 2024
- B.S., Geology, James Madison University, 2019
Dr. Hojnacki joined the Mercyhurst faculty in the fall of 2024. She is passionate about earth science and loves to share this passion with her students.
- GEOL 100: Dynamic Earth
- Soil Science
- Sedimentology and Stratigraphy
- Earth, Life, and Time
- Hojnacki, V., & Passchier, S. (2024). Early Oligocene record of an “iceberg alley” in the Weddell Sea from quartz sand microtextural analysis at ODP Site 696. Geosphere 2024; 20 (4): 1054–1065. doi: https://doi.org/10.1130/GES02686.1
- Hojnacki, V., Lepp, A., Horowitz Castaldo, J., States, A., Li, X., & Passchier, S. (2022). Impact of Eocene-Oligocene Antarctic glaciation on the paleoceanography of the Weddell Sea. Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology, 37, e2022PA004440. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022PA004440
Dr. Hojnacki’s research focuses on the sedimentology, paleoclimatology, and paleoceanography of high-latitude regions. Her projects focus on the use of ocean sediments to help reconstruct past environemental conditions that occur during climate transitions. Her recent projects focus on the Eocene-Oligocene transition, when the development of a permanent Antarctic Ice Sheet occured. In the summer of 2022, Dr. Hojnacki particapted in the International Ocean Discovery program, Expedidtion 393: The South Atlantic Transect. Her current project focuses on this expedition in order to understand how the development of the West Antartic ice-sheet affected paleocurrents in the South Atlantic.