Principal Investigators Sadro and Smits
Steve sadro - Associate Professor
Degrees
B.A., Biology, University of California, Santa Cruz
Ph.D., Limnology, University of California, Santa Barbara
I have wide-ranging research interests. Much of my work broadly examines how abiotic and biotic factors interact to control the structure and function of ecosystems. I study watershed processes and terrestrial-aquatic linkages, the biogeochemical cycling of carbon and nutrients through ecosystems and food webs, and factors that regulate the metabolic function (i.e., respiration and primary production) of ponds, lakes and estuaries. Many of our current projects seek to understand and predict the effect of climate change and other anthropogenic stressors on aquatic ecosystems from local to global scales.
I advise graduate students through the Graduate Group in Ecology (GGE) and the Hydrological Sciences Graduate Group (HSGG).
Websites
Department of Environmental Science and Policy (DESP)
Tahoe Environmental Research Center (TERC)
Adrianne Smits - Project scientist
Degrees
B.S., Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University
Ph.D., School of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, University of Washington
I am a Project Scientist and principal investigator leading and participating in research projects in lakes, estuaries, and rivers across California and the mountain west. I’m interested in how landscape and lake features mediate lake sensitivity to ice cover, snowmelt, and weather patterns in the Sierra Nevada, California.
I advise graduate students through the Graduate Group in Ecology (GGE) and the Hydrological Sciences Graduate Group (HSGG).
Websites
Department of Environmental Science and Policy (DESP)
Tahoe Environmental Research Center (TERC)
Lab Administration
Lindsay Vaughan - Lab manager
Degrees
B.S., Chemistry, UC Davis
I am an analytical chemist and field scientist. I oversee the lab, lead lab and field safety, maintain analytical instruments, oversee lab interns and technicians, and manage chemical analyses for multiple research projects
Graduate Students
BRyan Currinder - Ph.d. student
Degrees
B.S., Davidson College
M.E.S., University of Pennsylvania
bcurrinder@ucdavis.edu
I am a PhD student with a wide range of research interests in aquatic ecology, particularly within mountain aquatic systems. At the present, I am broadly interested in how climate change impacts mountain aquatic ecosystems, specifically through the lens of aquatic insects and invertebrates. Most of my research takes place in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, but research has also taken me to more distant, less-studied regions like Bangladesh and Bhutan.
MJ Farruggia - Ph.d. student
Degrees
B.S., University of California, San Diego
I’m a Ph.D. student in the Graduate Group for Ecology studying aquatic communities and ecosystems in the Sierra Nevada. My research focuses primarily on understanding the factors that govern the structure and function of small water bodies such as ponds, and their contributions to diversity on local and landscape scales.
Christine Parisek - ph.d. student
Degrees
B.S., Saint Mary's College of California
M.S., California State University Stanislaus
I am currently exploring the abundance, distribution, and food web ecology of California alpine lake ecosystems in the Sierra Nevada. I am interested in the mechanisms that govern lake food web structure and function across heterogeneous mountain landscapes, and in understanding limnology patterns occurring across scales. During my Masters, I conducted work describing the ecology and dispersal potential of aquatic insect communities in the Lakes Basin region of California. Since then I have been increasingly focused on high alpine freshwater ecosystems more broadly as a potential model for testing deeper ecological questions. My work now ranges from local-scale trophic dynamics to global-scale patterns in lake distributions.
Website caparisek.github.io
Twitter @caparisek
Alice Tung - ph.d. student
Degrees
B.S., University of California, San Diego
I am a 4th year PhD student in the Graduate Group in Ecology investigating the effects of water management, seasonality, and residence time on water quality and primary production, and how these effects may promote lower trophic food production in the Suisun Marsh. My work entails monitoring water quality, phytoplankton biomass, and phytoplankton production rates, throughout the duration of a flood cycle in several Suisun managed wetlands. Prior to starting graduate school I worked as an environmental scientist at the CA Dept of Water Resources (DWR), where I monitored and reported water quality in the South Delta of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta system.
Melissa Grim - ph.d. student
Degrees
B.S., UC Santa Barbara
I’m interested in ecosystem metabolism and biogeochemical cycling in lakes.
Former Graduate students
Nick Framsted (MS) — The Role of Abiotic and Biotic Processes in Regulating Benthic Ecosystem Function along a Productivity Gradient
Undergraduates
Current Undergraduates
Riley Hacker - Lead Sierra lake field crew
Kaelin Campbell - Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta field and lab crew, Sierra lake field crew
Former Undergraduates
Shuojia “Victoria” Fu - Sierra lake benthic metabolism analysis
Isabella Glenn - Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta metabolism incubation studies
Kelly Neal - Watershed GIS analysis of Sierra lakes
Reed Tran - Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta field and lab crew
Owen Sowerwine - Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta field and lab crew
Nick Gomez - Sierra lake field crew and lead on bathymetric mapping project
Ryan Birkett - Biogeochemistry lab technician
Chris Dunbar - Biogeochemistry lab technician
China Granger - Sierra sampling field crew
Carolyn Jones - Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta field and lab crew