Faculty
Michael Vanni
Dr. Vanni is the lead PI for Miami University’s LTREB project alongside his role as a professor 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.
Maria Gonzalez
Dr. Gonzalez is a professor 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).
Bartosz Grudzinski
Dr. Grudzinzki is an associate professor in Miami University’s Department of Geography. 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 zooplankton communities and larval fish, as well as the dynamics of larval gizzard shad.
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
Carrie Ann Sharitt
Carrie Ann is a PhD student soon to graduate who has been working with Mike Vanni. She has been involved with most everything that goes on with research related to the LREB, from lake metabolism to fish gut DNA.
Maddy Mason
Maddy is a second year graduate student working under Dr. González. She joined the lab during her sophomore year at Miami and have been working on various projects since. She is currently working on a project analyzing the effects of periodical cicada subsidies and environmental warming on zooplankton communities and their food web interactions for her Masters thesis. In the past she has worked on updating the data from long-term zooplankton sampling in Acton Lake.
Badrun Nessa
Badrun Nessa (Trisha) is a current graduate student pursuing her MA in Geography. She has completed her BSc and MSc in Environmental Sciences from Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh and Hokkaido University, Japan, respectively. Her research interests comprise of hydrology, aquatic ecology, and stable isotopic analysis.
Undergraduate Students
Aidan Healy
Aidan is a senior Biology and Environmental Science co-major. He is interested in fish populations and how they are affected by humans. Currently, he is looking into graduate schools for marine biology, and hopes one dayto work as a fisheries biologist or as an environmental consultant.
Aiden Schmeling
Aiden is a junior studying biology, sustainability, and GIS. Outside of working in lab he volunteers at the Hefner museum on campus, and is a part of several clubs including the ultimate frisbee team and MEPA. He hope to pursue a future in natural resource management and environmental sciences.
Michelle Abata
Michelle is a third year undergraduate student planning to graduate in May 2025 with a BS in Zoology and a minor in Spanish. She is interested in many areas of ecology and conservation, as well as medicine. She hopes to pursue veterinary school or another graduate program after she graduates. Currently, she is looking forward to planning my Honors Senior project and learning more in the lab.
Jenna Hamilton
Jenna is a third year undergraduate student. She will be an REU student this fall looking into rates and elemental ratios of sediment in Acton Lake. She is currently the head undergrad in charge of automated samplers located in the streams feeding into Acton Lake.
Acton Lake LTREB 