Richard A. Herbert Memorial Educational Fund Scholarship 2019-2020 Scholarship Recipients

摘要

Jessica Balerna graduated magna cum laude from American University in 2017 wit h a B.S. in Environmental Science and minors in ant hropology and statistics. She subsequently joined the Lewis Lab at t he University of South Florida (USF) to pursue a PhD studying wet land ecohydrology. Jessica has always been inter ested in interdisciplinary research combining methods from the social and natural sciences to mor e holistically assess key issues in freshwater health and management. During her undergraduate career, she studied how land-use intensification influenced the hydrology and water quality of three tributaries of the Potomac River, the primary drinking water source for Washington DC. She presented this work at the 2017 Southeastern Ecology & Evolution Conference. For her dissertation, Jessica will be investigating ecohydrological change in depressional wetlands affected by groundwater abstraction in Tampa Bay and how resident perceptions and behaviors have influenced water management decisions in t he past and present. This research is in collaboration with water management agencies in the region including the Southwest Florida Water Management District and Tampa Bay Water.