Rate My Professor Matthew Covington

Matthew Covington is an Associate Professor of Geoscience at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. His research specialties include karst, hydrogeology, geomorphology, and glaciology. Covington received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 2008, where his dissertation examined the production and evolution of scaling laws via galaxy merging under the advisement of Professor Joel Primack. He also earned a B.S. in Physics and a B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Arkansas in 2002, both summa cum laude, with honors theses on the trebuchet and quantum mechanics and free will, respectively.

Prior to his faculty position, Covington held postdoctoral fellowships, including an NSF Earth Sciences Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Minnesota (2008-2009) and an NSF International Research Fellowship at the Karst Research Institute in Slovenia (2010-2012). He has been at the University of Arkansas since 2012, initially as Assistant Professor and promoted to Associate Professor in 2018. Additionally, he served as a Fulbright U.S. Scholar at the Karst Research Institute in 2019-2020. Covington's research investigates hydrogeological and geomorphological processes in karst terrains, such as cave formation, ventilation, calcite dissolution rates, and subglacial hydrology, using analytical models, numerical simulations, and fieldwork. He has secured funding from the National Science Foundation, including a CAREER award (2023-2028) on sulfide oxidation and limestone corrosion in sulfuric acid caves, an RCN grant on carbonate critical zones (2019-2024), collaborative research on Greenland Ice Sheet moulin hydrology (2017-2020), and modeling bedrock channel incision (2012-2016). His awards include Sigma Gamma Epsilon Teacher of the Year (2014), NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (2002-2005), and National Speleological Society Cave Diving Section Exploration Award (2009). Key publications include "Englacial Drainage Drives Positive Feedback Depression Growth on the Debris Covered Ngozumpa Glacier, Nepal" (Geophysical Research Letters, 2023), "Carbonates in the Critical Zone" (Earth's Future, 2023), "Moulin Density Controls the Timing of Peak Pressurization Within the Greenland Ice Sheet's Subglacial Drainage System" (Geophysical Research Letters, 2022), and "The relative importance of wind-driven and chimney effect cave ventilation: Observations in Postojna Cave, Slovenia" (International Journal of Speleology, 2021).