People

SAUNNA NRT faculty and trainees span a wide variety of academic disciplines and areas of research expertise.  Our faculty come from the following research or academic units at UMaine:

We encourage interested students to review the faculty profiles below to determine how their research interests align with those of potential advisors.  All SAUNNA NRT faculty (including the principal investigators) are willing to serve as advisors and are happy to speak with prospective trainees.

Principal Investigators

Jasmine Saros (SAUNNA NRT PI) – Ecosystem Ecology: terrestrial-aquatic linkages, freshwater resources (Associate Director of CCI, SBE)

Paul Mayewski (Co-PI) – Earth & Climate Sciences: atmosphere-cryosphere linkages, paleoclimate (Director of CCI, ERS)

Lee Karp-Boss (Co-PI) – Marine Sciences: biophysical interactions in the ocean across multiple sclaes, plankton ecology (SMS)

Darren Ranco (Co-PI) – Anthropology: environmental justice and tribal governance, traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) (Chair of Native American Programs, ANT)

Kathleen Bell (Co-PI) – Economics: environmental economics, socio-environmental systems (SOE)

Senior Faculty

Kristin Schild – Glaciology: cryosphere-marine linkages (ERS, CCI)

Sean Birkel – Climatology: climate modeling, data analysis, visualization, and integration (Maine State Climatologist, CCI, ERS)

Keith Evans – Economics: marine natural resource economics, cooperation in the commons (SOE, SMS)

Charles Norchi – International Law: Arctic law, legal anthropology, policy sciences, Arctic governance, law of the sea, maritime law (Center for Oceans and Coastal Law, University of Maine School of Law, CCI)

Jacquelyn Gill – Paleoecology/Biogeography: climate change, extinction, and biotic interactions through time, from species to communities to ecosystems (SBE, CCI)

Kiley Daley – Environmental Studies: socio-ecological systems and health (water, sanitation, Indigenous and Arctic communities) (CCI)

Trainees

Cohort 1

Sydney Baratta – co-produced knowledge of rapidly changing tidewater glacier-fjord systems

Kate Follansbee – integrated Arctic tourism management

Amanda Gavin – integrated Arctic freshwater resource management and impacts of climate change on Arctic lakes

Ligia Naveira – integrated Arctic freshwater resource management and plausible scenario planning

Maya Reda-Williams – post-colonial subsistence living, fisheries, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Indigenous sovereignty, cross-cultural environmental relationships and communication

Cohort 2

Joseph Boots-Ebenfield – paleoecology and eDNA, environmental anthropology, knowledge co-production, traditional ecological knowledge, and high-latitude systems

Jordan Farnsworth – understanding changes in glacial dynamics in the Southern Greenland region using both historic and current aerial imagery

Ansley Grider – new Arctic lake formation along the Greenland ice sheet, examination water quality through chemical and biological measurements

Vaclava Hazukova – algal community ecology, under-ice algal dynamics and effects on further seasonal development in Greenland lakes

Jay Kim – climate-informed bio-economic modeling for the Maine Lobster Fishery, examination of adaptation strategies and resilience in the fishery through a bio-economic and socio-ecological systems (SES) analysis

Ana Trueba – climatology of extreme meteorological and climatological events in Maine and the Arctic, reanalysis to examine extreme events and how teleconnections such as the Arctic and North Atlantic Oscillations affected the development of these events

Cohort 3

Thomas Grindle – lake ice phenology and thermal stratification of Arctic lakes in Southwest Greenland

Cory Limberger – risks and uncertainties for marine and coastal ecosystems under complex multiple stressors

Tahi Wiggins – meltwater flux and glacier dynamics associated with supraglacial lake drainage

Cohort 4

Morgan Anderson – biodiversity and climate change, with an emphasis on seabirds as indicators of environmental shifts

Allie Berry – glacier dynamics and ice-ocean interactions

Kayla Guthrie – nitrogen cycling in glacier-fed lakes

Grayson Huston – ecological dynamics of fish environmental and sedimentary DNA (sedDNA) in Maine lakes

Miranda Seixas – nitrogen cycling and microbial metabolisms in glacially fed lakes and rivers in Greenland

Wyatt Stanley – aerial remote sensing techniques for quantifying spatial variations of snowpack