People

Faculty

Michael Vanni

Dr. Vanni is the lead PI for Miami University’s LTREB project alongside his role as a professor emeritus in the Department of Biology. His interests focus on integrating watersheds and lake ecosystems; the role of animals in recycling and transporting nutrients within the context of ecological stoichiometry theory and in terms of impacts at the ecosystem scale. His role in the LTREB project includes overseeing all aspects of the project related to nutrient cycling, fish abundance and biomass, and phytoplankton.

Lesley Knoll

Dr. Knoll explores drivers of lake dynamics and aquatic-watershed connections. Her research interests include nutrient fluxes, phytoplankton ecology, and lake ecosystem function (e.g., oxygen depletion, primary production). Dr. Knoll utilizes long-term datasets, field and lab experiments, large-scale field surveys, and advanced aquatic sensors to address questions that bridge the fields of community and ecosystem ecology. 

Current research themes include: 1) variable winter and spring conditions (e.g., ice cover, rainfall) and phytoplankton community dynamics and ecosystem-level processes, 2) consequences of long-term browning on lake ecosystems, 3) effects of resource subsidies on freshwater ecosystems, and 4) combined stressors of fish oxythermal habitat. 

Bartosz Grudzinski

Dr. Grudzinzki is an associate professor in Miami University’s Department of Geography and Department of Geology. His teaching and research encompass human-environmental interactions, watershed processes, and land use impacts on aquatic systems. For the LTREB project, he focuses on how different factors such as changing agricultural practices affect nutrient and hydrologic regimes in streams that feed into Acton Lake.  

Thomas Fisher

Dr. Tom Fisher is a professor in the Department of Statistics at Miami University. His research area is on the use and development of time series and statistical modeling, two tools regularly utilized in the LTREB project. He has a general interest in climate and its impact on ecology, and regularly works with students on the LTREB project.

Maria Gonzalez

Dr. Gonzalez is a professor emeritus in Miami University’s Biology Department. Her research focuses on how the efficiency of energy flow through aquatic food chains is constrained by solar radiation, nutrients, and predators. For the LTREB project, she is focusing on how the zooplankton community responds to changing agricultural practices (e.g., decreased watershed nutrient input, sediments, and pesticides). 

Research Staff

Amy Weber

Amy is a research associate and manager of the LTREB project. Alongside her leading role in the project and day-to-day activities of running the lab, she is currently working with watershed partners to increase conservation opportunities for farmers in the Four Mile watershed. She is mainly interested in watershed nutrient dynamics, specifically in agriculturally dominated landscapes. 

Graduate Students

Alex Bros

Alex is a masters student transitioning into a Ph.D. Her research has focused on how storms and weather conditions influence cyanobacteria dynamics.

Madison Miller

Madison is a second year master’s student who is studying if urbanization shifts fish oxythermal habitat in Minnesota lakes.

Ellie Connett

Ellie is a first year master’s student looking at algae and nutrient dynamics in streams above and below Acton Lake.

Lauren-Grace Ballenger

 Lauren-Grace is a first year masters student who will be assessing land-use and seasonal drivers of volatile and nonvolatile suspended solids in streams across Southwest Ohio.

Brock Anderson

Brock Anderson is a first year masters student evaluating the seasonal trends in water quality for streams entering Acton Lake, and looking for the underlying source. 

Undergraduate Students

Anna Maki

Anna is conducting research looking at bluegill larval fish population dynamics.

Eden Waters-Carpenter

Eden’s research focuses on phytoplankton nutrient limitation, phytoplankton dynamics, and toxin production relating to changing lake temperatures.

Ethan Krekeler

Ethan’s research is looking at diel patterns of dissolved nutrient uptake in streams and fine-scale changes in suspended solids.

Kate Halsey

Kate is an undergraduate worker for the project. She will be an REU student this summer looking into cyanobacteria toxin production in the lake.