Other Lab Members
Erin Overholt is our lab manager and she comes to us with multiple talents after receiving two Master's degrees at Miami University, one in Zoology and the other in life science education. Her experience ranges from monitoring water quality to studying fish communities to developing environmental education programs. She participates in the ongoing UV research ranging from the laboratory at Miami University to field research in Ohio reservoirs, Pocono lakes in Pennsylvania, and to alpine systems throughout the country and beyond.
Robert Moeller, a research scientist, is interested in the effects of UV on phytoplankton photosynthesis, photoprotective compounds, and the dietary transfer of these compounds to zooplankton. He has analyzed concentrations of carotenoids and mycosporine-like amino acids (MAAs) in zooplankton from Argentina, Alaska, and the Beartooth Mountains of Wyoming as well as from our local Pennsylvania lakes, and found pronounced differences in MAA concentrations related to environmental UV exposure levels. Robert has a diverse range of talents, including paleolimnology, and he is pictured here with a freeze coring device that he uses to sort out paleoclimate signals in lakes in Pennsylvania.
Carrie Kissman is a post-doctoral researcher in the Global Change Limnology Lab studying the effects of climate change, through indirect forcing mechanisms, on aquatic communities in the Beartooth Mountain lakes of Montana and Wyoming. She also is investigating how a stable hydrogen isotope, deuterium, can be used as an indicator of organic material source in alpine and sub-alpine lake systems. This work is being done in collaboration with Monika Winder at TERC.
Paula Hogan, a teacher at Lebanon High School, received a Research Experience for Teachers (RET) award from NSF to conduct paleolimnological work with the Williamson Lab during the summer of 2009. Paula identified cladocerans and copepods in sediment cores from Beartooth Mountain and Glacier National Park lakes to reconstruct past zooplankton assemblages. Looking at these patterns, as well as changes in the diatom community and trends in historic lake TOC, Paula worked to understand how changes in climate affected historic lakes species assemblages.