José A. Constantine

José Antonio Constantine

Associate Dean for Institutional Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Associate Professor of Geosciences

413-597-3298
Hopkins Hall
At Williams since 2016

Education

B.S. College of William and Mary (1999)
M.S. University of California-Davis (2002)
Ph.D. University of California-Santa Barbara (2008)

Areas of Expertise

Geomorphology and Environmental Justice

Scholarship/Creative Work

I am the son of an immigrant and the first person in my family to go to college. I had a general interest in the natural environment, but it was not until I had the opportunity to do research as an undergraduate (REU Internship) that I became curious about science as a potential career. I was inspired by the discovery that our planet changes in significant and observable ways each and every day, and I was eager to learn why.

I have since devoted most of my scholarship to fluvial geomorphology, where I try to answer questions that might unlock the mysteries of how rivers reshape the landscape. Tropical rivers have been a special focus, but I have also been fascinated by our attempts to tame the Mississippi River, North America’s largest and arguably most important river.

My curiosity with the Mississippi led me to Walter Johnson’s River of Dark Dreams, which changed my perspective of river management. In the lower Mississippi, river processes have been curtailed for the benefit of an agricultural economy that depends on the subjugation of people. Once this connection was made, I became committed to scholarship and advocacy in environmental justice, which has led to impactful collaborations with colleagues in Africana Studies, Environmental Studies, and Chemistry. Our current work involves partnerships with communities in Illinois and Florida facing sustained flooding, contamination, and injustice.

To learn more about our commitment to addressing climate and environmental injustice, please visit the Williams Environmental Justice Clinic.

My experience of research as an undergraduate was truly transformative. As a result, I’m excited to involve students in my work and to help them design projects that reflect their own curiosities. If you’re at all interested in geomorphology and environmental justice, please get in touch.

My Recent Thesis Students and Their Projects:

  • Grace Carter (’25) – Assessing the Impact of Woody Debris Dams on Dissolved Inorganic Carbon Dynamics, co-advised with Allison Gill
  • Liv Chambers (’25) – Decoding Historical Land Use Changes in the Arkansas River Basin Using Sedimentary Archives from Oxbow Lakes, co-advised with David Dethier, Jay Racela, and Samuel Muñoz
  • Li-Norah Flynn (’25) – Climate Change and Flood Risk: Exploring Natural Flood Protection for Cold Spring, New York, co-advised with Candice Constantine and Nina Noreika
  • Javier Jenkins-Sorensen (’25) – Factors Influencing the Formation and Distribution of Large Woody Debris Dams in a New England Catchment, co-advised with Allison Gill
  • Emily Stanger (’25) – Influence of Soil Properties on Trichloroethylene Flux in Contaminated Environments, co-advised with Anthony Carrasquillo
  • Noah Phipps (’25) – Unraveling the Drivers of Sediment Transport in Steep Forested Catchments, co-advised with David Dethier and Jordan Fields
  • Berenize Garcia Nueva (’24) – California’s Central Valley: The Physics of Heat Extremes in a Warmer World, co-advised with Veeshan Narinesingh and Joseph Clark
  • Sylvain Foisy (’24) – Controls on Liquid-Liquid Phase Separation, co-advised with Miriam Freedman and Anthony Carrasquillo
  • Benjamin Kargère (’24) – Wildfires and the Controls on Debris Flow Initiation, co-advised with Tristram Hales and Stewart Johnson
  • Jaquelin Nordhoff (’24) – Climate Gentrification and Wildfire Risk: Impacts of Fire on Housing Pricing and Demographics in Eastern California, co-advised with Sarah Jacobson
  • Kimberly Rogers (’24) – The Potential of Assisted Tree Migration in Mitigating Climate-Change-Driven Forest Die-Off, co-advised with Allison Gill
  • Elaine Yu (’24) – Investigating the Environmental Fate of TCE as a Means of Achieving Environmental Justice, co-advised with John Thoman and Anthony Carrasquillo

Recent Papers (*denotes student author).  Full publication list on Google Scholar.

  1. Manigault-Bryant, J. and Constantine, J.A., 2024, Black Studies and the Production of Environmental Justice Knowledge. Environmental Justice (https://doi.org/10.1089/env.2024.0040).
  2. Ciampalini, R., Kendon, E.J., Constantine, J.A., Schindewolf, M., Hall, I.R., 2023, Soil Erosion in a British Watershed under Climate Change as Predicted Using Convection-Permitting Regional Climate Projections. Geosciences (https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences13090261).
  3. *Thomas, S.-S., Constantine, J.A., Dethier, D., Thoman, Jr., J.W., Racela, J., *Blau, E., Landis, J.D., 2022, The importance of oxbow lakes in the floodplain storage of pollutants. Geology (https://doi.org/10.1130/G49427.1).
  4. Richards, D., Konsoer, K., Langendoen, E., Ursic, M., Constantine, J., 2021, Depositional patterns of slowly plugging neck cutoffs from core analysis and estimates of bedload transport, White River, Arkansas. Sedimentology (https://doi.org/10.1111/sed.12915).
  5. Manigault-Bryant, J.A., *Bagwyn, R., Constantine, J.A., 2020, Poisoning Tallevast, in Cohen, J. and Chasman, D., eds., Climate Action: Cambridge, Massachusetts, Boston Review Forum 16, p. 78-96 (http://bostonreview.net/science-nature-race/james-manigault-bryant-ruby-bagwyn-jose-constantine-poisoning-tallevast).

Awards, Fellowships & Grants

NSF Award 2321058Unraveling the Controls on the Origin and Environmental Functioning of Oxbow Lakes ($271,639.00, 1 July 2023 to 30 June 2026)

NSF Award 2026789: Invisible Floods on the Mississippi River Floodplain: Unravelling the Causes of Urban Flooding in a Community-Centered Approach to Geomorphology ($135,071; 1 Aug 2020 to 31 July 2024).