Ria is a graduate student at Rutgers University and is studying how the variations in deepwater formation in the North Atlantic region may have been linked to past climate change events since the Last Glacial Maximum, 20,000 years ago. She does this by studying foraminifera, a type of microfossil, that is the size of a point of a needle. Ria is also heavily involved with the Rutgers University Geology Museum where she educates school groups and visitors about geology and other natural history topics.