Duncan Wheeler is a postdoc in the Department of Earth & Climate Sciences at Tufts University using observations from Greenland and Alaska to study ocean-glacier interactions. Duncan received his PhD in physical oceanography from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, funded by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship in April 2024. Duncan is interested in interdisciplinary research that bridges the social and physical sciences to identify how fundamental physical research can be done in a way that most effectively benefits society. For his thesis, first he examined the ways in which large infragravity frequency waves can impact shallow estuaries, mainly through turbulent mixing and its resulting effects on salinity, temperature, and oxygen. Second, he studied cultural conflicts that arise in academia and how they affect researchers through interviews asking academics about various expectations. Previously Duncan received a Bachelor of Science in Physics from MIT, where he worked on optics research with applications to photovoltaics.