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Kristen Bretz
Biological Sciences
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1576861295593{margin-bottom: 2px !important;}”]Kristen is a part of Dr. Erin Hotchkiss‘ lab as a PhD student in the Department of Biological Sciences to study biogeochemical processes in streams.
She first became interested in freshwater ecology while conducting undergraduate research on queen snakes in the Mitchell River in North Carolina near where she grew up. After graduating from Wake Forest University with a double major in Biology and Philosophy, Kristen began a Master’s degree in the department of Environmental Science and Engineering from the Gillings School of Global Public Health at UNC Chapel Hill. Her research was on methane dynamics in Alaskan arctic lakes, and she spent 2 summers taking lake sediment cores while working out of the LTER at Toolik Field Station.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”42239″ img_size=”275×355″ alignment=”center” style=”vc_box_border”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1578510310474{margin-top: -10px !important;}”]Eager to return to Alaska after getting her MS, Kristen interned with U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s field office on the Kenai peninsula where she taught stream science in local schools and helped with ongoing habitat conservation projects and lake trout research. For the past several years, she has been a Program Coordinator with Iowa State University and USDA Veterinary services, where she worked with foreign animal disease programs. She also spent a year as an editor with the journal BioResources.
Kristen is interested in how carbon and nutrient cycling in aquatic systems are responding to climate change. She plans to investigate what impact shifts in the timing of light exposure and nutrient and carbon loading will have on stream biogeochemistry. She also wants to study how climate change may alter stream metabolism in ways that cause feedbacks within the ecosystem. She plans to use field research and modeling to assess ecosystem function, and she remains interested in high-latitude freshwater systems.
Kristen is excited to be a part of the ICG where she can be involved in interdisciplinary collaboration and gain a wider set of practical skills for addressing threats to the environment.
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In the News:
Kristen Bretz is the 2019 William R. Walker Graduate Research Fellow[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_separator style=”shadow”][/vc_column][/vc_row]