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Our people

A page within River Studies Center

Center Director

Eric Strauss  Profile of Eric Strauss

Professor
2033 Cowley Hall
estrauss@uwlax.edu
608.785.8262

Specialty areas:

Limnology, Stream and River Ecology, Water Quality

Colin Belby  Profile of Colin Belby  Office hours

Professor
2021 Cowley Hall
cbelby@uwlax.edu
608.785.8339

Specialty areas:

Geomorphology, River Systems, Water Resources, Environmental Contamination, Geospatial Field Mapping and GIS

Bonnie Bratina  Profile of Bonnie Bratina

Associate Professor
3029 Cowley Hall
bbratina@uwlax.edu
608.785.6994

Specialty areas:

Microbial ecology, Aquatic microbiology, Biogeochemistry

Joan Bunbury  Profile of Joan Bunbury  Joan Bunbury saysMeet with me  Office hours

Professor
2025 Cowley Hall
jbunbury@uwlax.edu
608.785.8402

Specialty areas:

Paleoclimatology, biogeography, freshwater environments

Wako Bungula  Profile of Wako Bungula  Office hours

Assistant Professor
1027 Cowley Hall
wbungula@uwlax.edu
608.785.6608

Specialty areas:

Topological Data Analysis (TDA), TDA Mapper, Computational Topology, Topology

Gargi Chaudhuri  Profile of Gargi Chaudhuri  Office hours

Professor
2022 Cowley Hall
gchaudhuri@uwlax.edu
608.785.8338

Specialty areas:

GIS, Remote Sensing, Urban Analytics, and Machine Learning. 

Adam Driscoll  Profile of Adam Driscoll  Office hours

Associate Professor
437J Wimberly Hall
adriscoll@uwlax.edu
608.785.6801

Specialty areas:

Environmental Sociology, Sociology of Food and Agriculture, The Environmental Impacts of Agriculture, Online Pedagogy

Jason Freund  Profile of Jason Freund  Office hours

Assistant Teaching Professor
2036 Cowley Hall
jfreund@uwlax.edu
608.785.6455

Specialty areas:

Stream Ecology, Fisheries Ecology, Trout Stream Habitat Management, Interactions of Aquatic and Terrestrial Ecosystems

Laurie Harmon  Profile of Laurie Harmon  Office hours

Professor
2044 Health Science Center
lharmon@uwlax.edu
608.785.8213

Specialty areas:

My primary areas of research are social-psychological outcomes of nature-based recreation including how we come to know and get connected to places, technology and the outdoors, and the scholarship of teaching & learning.  I particularly enjoy the work I do using underwater remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to get youth and adults connected to aquatic environments.

Tisha King-Heiden  Profile of Tisha King-Heiden

Professor
3028 Cowley Hall
tking-heiden@uwlax.edu
608.785.6463

Specialty areas:

Reproductive physiology, reproductive toxicology, and developmental toxicology.  In my lab, we strive to bridge the gap between ecotoxicology (fish) and human health. We use small fish models (typically zebrafish and fathead minnows) to study the effects of embryonic exposure to various  environmental contaminants of emerging concern on development, behavior,  metamorphosis, cardiovascular health, immune response and reproductive health.  

Students interested in doing Undergraduate Independent Research or earning a MS degree should email me, especially if you hold marginalized identities within the field of environmental science.

Niti Mishra  Profile of Niti Mishra  Office hours

Associate Professor
2026 Cowley Hall
nmishra@uwlax.edu
608.785.8334

Specialty areas:

Remote Sensing, Cartography, GIScience

James Peirce  Profile of James Peirce  Office hours

Professor
1028 Cowley Hall
jpeirce@uwlax.edu
608.785.6604

Specialty areas:

Mathematical Ecology and Differential Equations

Brian Pompeii  Profile of Brian Pompeii  Office hours

Assistant Professor
2020 Cowley Hall
bpompeii@uwlax.edu
608.785.6674

Specialty areas:

My specialty areas include water resource management, environmental justice, sustainability, and hazards. 

Alysa Remsburg  Profile of Alysa Remsburg  Alysa Remsburg saysMeet with me  Office hours

Teaching Professor
4106 Centennial Hall
aremsburg@uwlax.edu
608.785.5250

Specialty areas:

service learning, forest ecology, dragonfly and damselfly ecology, forest and riparian socio-ecological systems, conservation biology

Kristofer Rolfhus  Profile of Kristofer Rolfhus  Office hours

Professor
4022 Cowley Hall
krolfhus@uwlax.edu
608.785.8289

Specialty areas:

Environmental and analytical chemistry

Daniel Sambu  Profile of Daniel Sambu  Office hours

Associate Professor
2024 Cowley Hall
dsambu@uwlax.edu
608.785.8342

Specialty areas:

Water Resources, Natural Hazards, Sustainable Development, Environmental Conservation, Community Livelihood, Conservation photography

Gregory Sandland  Profile of Gregory Sandland

Professor
2032 Cowley Hall
gsandland@uwlax.edu
608.785.6982

Specialty areas:

Host-parasite interactions, life-history evolution, disease ecology, invasive species dynamics, mathematical biology, toxicology

David Schumann  Profile of David Schumann  Office hours

Assistant Professor
2034 Cowley Hall
dschumann@uwlax.edu
608.785.8242

Specialty areas:

Fisheries ecology and management, interactions among species, conservation biology, movement ecology. 

Contact me if you have any interest in undergraduate or graduate (MS) research in these fields!

Kelly Sultzbach  Profile of Kelly Sultzbach  Office hours

Professor
426F Wimberly Hall
ksultzbach@uwlax.edu
608.785.6930

Specialty areas:

20th Century British & American Literature, Environmental Literature, Environmental Justice, Ecocriticism, Animal Studies, Climate Literature, Questions of Place and Identity, Law and Literature

Meredith Thomsen  Profile of Meredith Thomsen

Dean Grad & Extended Learning
205C Morris Hall
mthomsen@uwlax.edu
608.785.8245

Specialty areas:

Academic leadership; graduate program support; credit and non-credit outreach program development. Primary contact for thesis/dissertation; graduate faculty status. 

Ross Vander Vorste  Profile of Ross Vander Vorste  Office hours

Assistant Professor
3032 Cowley Hall
rvandervorste@uwlax.edu
608.785.6978

Specialty areas:

aquatic invertebrates, freshwater ecology, disturbance ecology, community ecology, conservation biology