Team

Scott Jasechko

Scott Jasechko, Ph.D. (for full bio click here)

Email: [replace with my lastname] at ucsb - dot - edu

Bren School of Environmental Science & Management
2400 Bren Hall, University of California, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, California, USA, 93106-5131

Melissa Thaw, Postdoctoral Fellow

Melissa Thaw completed her PhD in Environmental Systems at the University of California, Merced in 2019. Melissa’s research in isotope hydrology bridged collaboration between the Southern Sierra Critical Zone Observatory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. As a Lawrence Scholar, Melissa contributed to the development of new field and lab methods for hydrologic tracers sodium-22 and sulfur-35 and gained experience with multiple hydrologic tracers from sample collection and processing, to data analysis. Melissa’s previous experience includes international research in hydrology as a National Science Foundation East Asia and Pacific Summer Institute Fellow, where she collaborated with Hohai University in Nanjing, China. She earned a Master of Science in Water Resources Management from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 2013. Melissa has professional experience in non-profit environmental advocacy. As a post-doctoral researcher, Melissa is leading hydrology research at the Jack and Laura Dangermond Preserve, which will contribute to the conservation and understanding of this unique landscape.

Annette Hilton PhD student

Annette Hilton is working towards her PhD in the Bren School at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Annette's research focuses on groundwater quantity. Annette's previous research focused on the remote detection of carcinogenic chemicals in the San Francisco Bay utilizing satellite imagery. Moving forward, Annette plans to examine water quantity and availability with a continued focus on water quality. Stay tuned for more!

Grace Brofman MESM 2021

Grace Brofman is working toward her Masters in Environmental Science and Management at the Bren School, where she is specializing in Water Resources Management with a focus in Environmental Data Science. This summer, Grace’s work will focus on the collection of groundwater pumping data as a way to inform pumping estimates in regions where data is currently lacking. In addition to this research, Grace will be working with American Rivers to complete an analysis of the surface water-groundwater relationship in the San Luis Valley, Colorado. In the future, Grace hopes to utilize knowledge of groundwater dynamics to promote water conservation in agricultural practices.

Claire Madden MESM 2020

Claire Madden is completing her Masters in Environmental Science and Management in the Bren School at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Their multi-faceted summer research spans environmental justice in the California Central Valley, large groundwater spatial dataset collation and analyses, and field hydrology in a coastal California watershed. Strategically, Claire's research will lead to better maps of areas undergoing groundwater depletion and where groundwater quality is threatened by modern-era and geogenic contaminants in California and beyond.

University of california - santa barbara team alumni

Ivy Nunez BSc 2018

Ivy Nunez is completing her BSc in Environmental Studies with a specialization in Hydrology at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Their work during the summer of 2018 focuses on hydrochemical data at continental-scales Specifically, Ivy is developing a pan-continent groundwater chemistry dataset for further geospatial analysis, with the summertime goal of better understanding the variability in groundwater quality at expansive (100s - 1000s kilometers) spatial scales.

Charlotte Mahoney BSc 2018

Charlotte Mahoney is completing her BSc in Earth Sciences at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Their summer-2018 research includes amassing quantitative hydrogeological data for global aquifer systems. Charlotte's research will create a new groundwater dataset for geographic information systems analysis to build a better knowledge base of just where groundwater is stored across the continents, information vital for understanding groundwater flows and quality across continents.

Bren School masters group projects

Recharge for Resilience (2019-2020): Jenny Balmagia, Claire Madden, Bridget Gibbons, Anna Perez Welter. Team Webpage: https://waterresilience.wixsite.com/waterresilienceca

University of calgary team (2015 - 2018)

Jessica Ellis MSc 2015-2017

Jessica Ellis completed her M.Sc. in Geography at the University of Calgary. Jessica focused her research on Alberta oil sands region water quality. Fieldwork was key to Jessica's MSc-level research. She organized and led no less than three excursions to northeastern Alberta, making thousands of water quality measurements. Jessica sampled springs of fossil groundwater discharging into rivers in the oil sands region (picture of Jessica collecting a sample from the Globe and Mail). Jessica completed water chemistry analyses at five laboratories in Canada and the USA. Her leadership led to an important discovery: underground formation waters discharge into oil sands rivers, particularly where oil-sands-bearing formations and deeper formations that are sometimes targeted for wastewater injection outcrop along river banks. She presented research at more than four conferences during her MSc, including her presentation at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting. Jessica's research is published in Hydrological Processes (Ellis and Jasechko, 2018). Jessica now works in the Athabasca oil sands region through Athabasca University as part of a multi-year research program.

Brendan Hart BSc Honours 2016-2017

Brendan Hart completed his Honours-level B.Sc. in Environmental Science with us. Brendan sampled the Bow River at Calgary 228 days in a row. His project sought to better understand how long it takes for rain and snow to reach the Bow. Brendan discovered that the large majority of Bow River water is precipitation that fell more than ~3 months ago. Brendan's finding that most water in the Bow River takes many months or even years to reach the river has key implications for water quality and land use management, as he details in his lead article in the Bow River Basin Council's September-2017 newsletter (link to their website here). Brendan now travels Australia, exploring rivers down under.

Yashee Mathur BSc MITACS Fellowship Summer-2016

Yashee Mathur completed her MITACS Fellowship with us at the University of Calgary. While here, Yashee contributed to amassing extensive oxygen, hydrogen and carbon isotope data and analyzing her compilation to better understand spatial distributions of water isotope compositions. Yashee has now completed her B.Sc. in Integrated Applied Geology from the Indian Institute of Technology at the Indian School of Mines in Dhanbad, located in eastern India. She now works as a geologist with Cairn Limited.

Michelle Fodor BSc NSERC USRA Fellowship Summer-2015

Michelle Fodor led an NSERC USRA during summer 2015 with us. Michelle completed numerous research projects during the summer, including sampling water wells in rural central Alberta, compilation of water isotope and water infrastructure data. Michelle is now a lead researcher at an agriculture research station in Lacombe, Alberta (~2 hour drive north of Calgary).