Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Denise Bruesewitz will be joining the ES program in the fall of 2012

Dr. Bruesewitz is broadly interested in how human activities alter aquatic ecosystems and the services they provide. To explore these interests, she creatively applies tools from biogeochemistry and ecosystem ecology to develop research questions relating to anthropogenic impacts such as land use change, climate change, or the spread of invasive species.Her background in carbon and nutrient cycling spans diverse aquatic ecosystems including streams, large rivers, lakes, and coastal marine environments.

Dr. Bruesewitz is originally from Rockford, Illinois.  She graduated with a B.S. in Biology from Winona State University in Winona, MN.  As an undergraduate, she examined competition between zebra mussels and hydropsychid caddisflies in the Upper Mississippi River. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame, where she studied how invasive zebra mussels alter nitrogen cycling. She has since done postdoctoral research at the University of Waikato in New Zealand and at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute. In New Zealand, she examined how recent increases in agriculture and subsequent nutrient pollution alters nitrogen and carbon cycling in the Rotorua Lakes. Her work in Texas is geared towards developing water quality management recommendations for the Gulf of Mexico in cooperation with the Gulf of Mexico Alliance (GOMA) and the US EPA.

Dr. Bruesewitz is a mother to two young children. When she isn’t busy reading Dr. Seuss or studying mud, she enjoys canoeing and snowshoeing with her family. She also is an avid gardener, baker of bread, and knitter.

Next year, Professor Bruesewitz is looking forward to teaching Problems in Environmental Science (ES494) in the fall and a new course in Aquatic Ecology (ES356) in the spring.

We are delighted to have Prof. Denise Bruesewitz joining the Colby faculty in the fall of 2012.