Past and present hydroclimate for water and ecosystem resilience
I combine field, laboratory, and modeling approaches to understand how climate variability shapes environments over timescales.
Climate archives and geochemical proxies
I develop and synthesize records from lake-wetland sediments, and soils to reconstruct past climate and environmental changes.
Hydroclimate dynamics & proxy-model integration
I compare and combine paleo records with climate model simulations to understand how rainfall, drought, and fire change across space and time.
Environmental resilience
I use lake models and ecological and history records to examine how climate variability affects water, ecosystems, and societies.
Themes in my work:
Tools: Organic and stable isotope geochemistry | GIS | Proxy system modeling |
Climate model simulations | Lake water-quality modeling
Explore feature projects:
Phong Nga, Vietnam (2025)
Mainland Southeast Asian (MSEA) hydroclimate
How has monsoon rainfall changed across MSEA, and what do those changes mean for water, ecosystems, and environmental changes? My work in this region combines proxy records, isotope geochemistry, and climate model simulations to reconstruct past hydroclimate and environment beyond the instrumental record.
Selected Projects:
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Reconstructing post 8.2k-event environmental responses over Thai-Malay Peninsula using a peat-swamp sediment record. (Sae-Lim et al., 2025a)
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Reconstructing last millennial rainy-season hydroclimate over MSEA via data assimilation. (in revision with PNAS)​
Cordillera Vilcanota, Peru (2019)
Peruvian Andean highlands
How has tropical Andean highlands responded to large-scale circulation, glacier change, and local environmental changes over the late Holocene? My work combines paleoclimate proxies preserved in lake sediments and peat records and lake modeling to reconstruct past hydroclimate, temperature, and lake-system change. Together, these projects provide long-term context for understanding tropical alpine environments in a warming climate.
Selected Projects:
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Reconstructing South American summer monsoon variability and local alpine effective moisture using leaf wax isotopes. (Sae-Lim et al., 2025b)
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Modeling recent and future lake temperature change in Lake Sibinacocha to assess tropical Andean lake responses to 21st-century warming (Sae-Lim et al., 2025c)​
Toward climate and water resilience
Long-term records of climate and environmental change provide essential context for understanding future water risks, ecosystem responses, and human-environment interactions. My research connects natural archives with modern observations and numerical models to examine how rainfall, lakes, fire regimes, and landscapes responded to past climate variability. This perspective contributes to climate science, ecology, archaeology, and water-resource planning by helping explain how ecosystems and past societies experienced, adapted to, or were shaped by environmental change. As I prepare to build my research group at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, I welcome future students and potential collaborators interested in climate, water, geochemistry, lakes, and environmental change.