Lab Alumni
Postdocs
Dr. Carolina Barbosa (2022-2023): Carol joined us from Brazil as a postdoc on the Modelscape project, where she worked on on various data intensive projects about aquatic ecology and led an exciting analysis of nutrient retention trends for Western US lakes and reservoirs. We're proud and happy to keep her in the neighborhood as she moved on to a teaching faculty position at Colorado State University.
Dr. Charlotte Narr (2019): Charlotte was a postdoc with Sarah and Pavel Chernyavskiy (UW Math & Stats), working on developing non-stationary models to understand macroscale spatial patterns in water quality. She is currently an Assistant Professor at Southern Illinois University.
Dr. Isabella Oleksy (2021-2023): Bella was part of the Modelscape project and led several cool papers, including an analysis of productivity trends in high-elevation lakes in the Intermountain West and an analysis of how wildfire influences lake productivity. We're proud and happy to keep her in the neighborhood as she moved on to a faculty position at CU Boulder.
Graduate Students
Karen Jorgenson (MS, Spring 2022): Karen completed an awesome MS thesis on alpine stream food webs in the Tetons, finding high amounts of flexibility in food web linkages across streams with different hydrologic sources. She is returning to Tamara Harms' lab at the University of Alaska Fairbanks to conduct research on watershed biogeochemistry.
Chance Roberts (MS, Fall 2022): Chance was co-advised by Willie Fetzer and conducted research on the food web of Flaming Gorge Reservoir, finding lots of variation in food web linkages across regions of the reservoir and seasons. His work was conducted in collaboration with several Wyoming Fish and Game biologists. He moved on to a position doing fisheries work with the US Forest Service.
Kelsey Ruehling (MS, Summer 2022): Kelsey's excellent MS thesis incorporated ideas from water quality, freshwater ecology, and microbiology to evaluate sources of microbial pollution to streams in Wyoming. She is working on water quality standards for Colorado Water Quality Control Division.
Sam Sillen (MS, Fall 2022): Sam's MS thesis included two exciting papers that explored 1) long-term productivity dynamics in Mountain West reservoirs using remote sensing estimates of chlorophyll, and 2) a comparison of cyanobacterial biomass based on field samples from Wyoming reservoirs vs. remote sensing estimates from the CYaN data product. He moved on to a research analyst position with John Gardner's lab at the University of Pittsburgh.
Undergraduates & Postgrad Technicians
Alyssa Halls (UW Undergraduate 2023-2024): Alyssa assisted with sample processing and some field work for Casey's research project, including awesome work processing zooplankton samples.
Mariah Saville (UW Undergraduate 2022, Technician 2023-2024): Mariah assisted with building the STOICH database during the end of her undergraduate career and after graduation.
Elise Ehlers (Technician 2023): Elise, already a friend of the lab from her work with the STOICH project in Nebraska, joined us for Summer 2023 to help out with various projects around the lab, including HCB work and STOICH.
Angela Zhu (UW Undergraduate & Wyoming Research Scholar, 2021-2023): Angela joined the lab in Summer 2021 to assist with identifying and acquiring data to build the STOICH database and helped with various student projects before completing an independent honors project about beaver pond food webs. She has since moved on to a graduate program at the University of Michigan in Meg Duffy's lab.
Trevor Knowles (UW Undergraduate 2022-2023): Trevor was an awesome zooplankton sample processing guru for a couple of summers!
Darby McMartin (UW Undergraduate, 2022-2023): Darby helped with Ashleigh's PhD research and conducted an independent research project about how harmful algal blooms influence food web structure. She departed for an exciting summer doing field work with Idaho Fish and Game.
Colt Duncan (UW Undergraduate, 2023): Colt assisted with processing zooplankton samples during his senior year at UW and is off to join the Peace Corps in Tonga.
Taylor Skiles (Technician, 2022-2023): Taylor assisted with many lab and field tasks for Casey and Ashleigh's projects and is now wrangling fish in the Great Lakes with Michigan DNR.
Katie Bearden (Undergraduate 2020-2021, Technician 2022): Katie assisted with various projects in the lab as an undergraduate student and as a full-time technician after she graduated, including the STOICH project, HCB project, and others. We are super excited that she is moving on to an MS program at South Dakota State working on fish movement with Alison Coulter.
Emma Román (Undergraduate, Summer 2021): Emma brought her excellent field and lab skills to help Kelsey sample and enumerate E. coli and extract lots of DNA in Teton County in Summer 2021. She continued this work as part of her senior thesis at Middlebury College and is now a lab technician at the California Academy of Sciences and Stanford University.
Macy Jacobson (UW Undergraduate, Summer 2021): Macy did an awesome job assisting Sam with Harmful Cyanobacterial Bloom sampling in reservoirs across Wyoming in Summer 2021.
Jaide Phelps (Inaugural lab member/technician/lab manager/jack of all trades, 2018-2021): Jaide kept the lab running, helped with various field projects, prepped so many stable isotope samples that the isotope lab offered her a job, did lab work on the COVID wastewater project, and kept Sarah updated on the latest seasons of the Bachelor. She's also wrapping up a manuscript that demonstrates the utility of sulfur isotopes for understanding how stocked fish are incorporated into reservoir food webs. She is currently pursuing an MS in Marine Biology with Katrin Iken at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Lisa Harris (UW Undergraduate, 2021): Lisa assisted with a project about aquatic invertebrate gut microbiomes during the Spring 2021 semester.
Mikey Castillion (UW Undergraduate, 2020-2021): Mikey assisted with Karen's MS research in alpine streams in Grand Teton National Park. She graduated from UW in 2021 with a double major in Environmental System Science and Environment and Natural Resources with minors in geology, sustainability, and outdoor leadership and is currently working for NOLS.
Corey McDonough (Field Technician, 2020): Corey assisted with field work on the Laramie River for the WRP E. coli project.
Maddison Kopsa (UW Undergraduate, 2019-2020): Maddi did an undergraduate independent study project in the lab. She collected invertebrate samples and ecosystem data on Savery Creek, WY to understand how changes in flow influence invertebrate communities.
Dr. Carolina Barbosa (2022-2023): Carol joined us from Brazil as a postdoc on the Modelscape project, where she worked on on various data intensive projects about aquatic ecology and led an exciting analysis of nutrient retention trends for Western US lakes and reservoirs. We're proud and happy to keep her in the neighborhood as she moved on to a teaching faculty position at Colorado State University.
Dr. Charlotte Narr (2019): Charlotte was a postdoc with Sarah and Pavel Chernyavskiy (UW Math & Stats), working on developing non-stationary models to understand macroscale spatial patterns in water quality. She is currently an Assistant Professor at Southern Illinois University.
Dr. Isabella Oleksy (2021-2023): Bella was part of the Modelscape project and led several cool papers, including an analysis of productivity trends in high-elevation lakes in the Intermountain West and an analysis of how wildfire influences lake productivity. We're proud and happy to keep her in the neighborhood as she moved on to a faculty position at CU Boulder.
Graduate Students
Karen Jorgenson (MS, Spring 2022): Karen completed an awesome MS thesis on alpine stream food webs in the Tetons, finding high amounts of flexibility in food web linkages across streams with different hydrologic sources. She is returning to Tamara Harms' lab at the University of Alaska Fairbanks to conduct research on watershed biogeochemistry.
Chance Roberts (MS, Fall 2022): Chance was co-advised by Willie Fetzer and conducted research on the food web of Flaming Gorge Reservoir, finding lots of variation in food web linkages across regions of the reservoir and seasons. His work was conducted in collaboration with several Wyoming Fish and Game biologists. He moved on to a position doing fisheries work with the US Forest Service.
Kelsey Ruehling (MS, Summer 2022): Kelsey's excellent MS thesis incorporated ideas from water quality, freshwater ecology, and microbiology to evaluate sources of microbial pollution to streams in Wyoming. She is working on water quality standards for Colorado Water Quality Control Division.
Sam Sillen (MS, Fall 2022): Sam's MS thesis included two exciting papers that explored 1) long-term productivity dynamics in Mountain West reservoirs using remote sensing estimates of chlorophyll, and 2) a comparison of cyanobacterial biomass based on field samples from Wyoming reservoirs vs. remote sensing estimates from the CYaN data product. He moved on to a research analyst position with John Gardner's lab at the University of Pittsburgh.
Undergraduates & Postgrad Technicians
Alyssa Halls (UW Undergraduate 2023-2024): Alyssa assisted with sample processing and some field work for Casey's research project, including awesome work processing zooplankton samples.
Mariah Saville (UW Undergraduate 2022, Technician 2023-2024): Mariah assisted with building the STOICH database during the end of her undergraduate career and after graduation.
Elise Ehlers (Technician 2023): Elise, already a friend of the lab from her work with the STOICH project in Nebraska, joined us for Summer 2023 to help out with various projects around the lab, including HCB work and STOICH.
Angela Zhu (UW Undergraduate & Wyoming Research Scholar, 2021-2023): Angela joined the lab in Summer 2021 to assist with identifying and acquiring data to build the STOICH database and helped with various student projects before completing an independent honors project about beaver pond food webs. She has since moved on to a graduate program at the University of Michigan in Meg Duffy's lab.
Trevor Knowles (UW Undergraduate 2022-2023): Trevor was an awesome zooplankton sample processing guru for a couple of summers!
Darby McMartin (UW Undergraduate, 2022-2023): Darby helped with Ashleigh's PhD research and conducted an independent research project about how harmful algal blooms influence food web structure. She departed for an exciting summer doing field work with Idaho Fish and Game.
Colt Duncan (UW Undergraduate, 2023): Colt assisted with processing zooplankton samples during his senior year at UW and is off to join the Peace Corps in Tonga.
Taylor Skiles (Technician, 2022-2023): Taylor assisted with many lab and field tasks for Casey and Ashleigh's projects and is now wrangling fish in the Great Lakes with Michigan DNR.
Katie Bearden (Undergraduate 2020-2021, Technician 2022): Katie assisted with various projects in the lab as an undergraduate student and as a full-time technician after she graduated, including the STOICH project, HCB project, and others. We are super excited that she is moving on to an MS program at South Dakota State working on fish movement with Alison Coulter.
Emma Román (Undergraduate, Summer 2021): Emma brought her excellent field and lab skills to help Kelsey sample and enumerate E. coli and extract lots of DNA in Teton County in Summer 2021. She continued this work as part of her senior thesis at Middlebury College and is now a lab technician at the California Academy of Sciences and Stanford University.
Macy Jacobson (UW Undergraduate, Summer 2021): Macy did an awesome job assisting Sam with Harmful Cyanobacterial Bloom sampling in reservoirs across Wyoming in Summer 2021.
Jaide Phelps (Inaugural lab member/technician/lab manager/jack of all trades, 2018-2021): Jaide kept the lab running, helped with various field projects, prepped so many stable isotope samples that the isotope lab offered her a job, did lab work on the COVID wastewater project, and kept Sarah updated on the latest seasons of the Bachelor. She's also wrapping up a manuscript that demonstrates the utility of sulfur isotopes for understanding how stocked fish are incorporated into reservoir food webs. She is currently pursuing an MS in Marine Biology with Katrin Iken at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Lisa Harris (UW Undergraduate, 2021): Lisa assisted with a project about aquatic invertebrate gut microbiomes during the Spring 2021 semester.
Mikey Castillion (UW Undergraduate, 2020-2021): Mikey assisted with Karen's MS research in alpine streams in Grand Teton National Park. She graduated from UW in 2021 with a double major in Environmental System Science and Environment and Natural Resources with minors in geology, sustainability, and outdoor leadership and is currently working for NOLS.
Corey McDonough (Field Technician, 2020): Corey assisted with field work on the Laramie River for the WRP E. coli project.
Maddison Kopsa (UW Undergraduate, 2019-2020): Maddi did an undergraduate independent study project in the lab. She collected invertebrate samples and ecosystem data on Savery Creek, WY to understand how changes in flow influence invertebrate communities.