Check our our online lab scrapbook to see more of our lab in action

Current Lab Members (listed in order of duration in the lab group)

Emily Bernhardt, PI

Emily is a NC native who attended UNC Chapel Hill as an undergraduate.  There she gained her first field experiences counting seedings in the Duke Forest, sampling macroinvertebrates in local agricultural streams and experimenting with blue crabs at the UNC Marine Lab.  She received her PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Cornell University in 2001, conducting her dissertation research on nitrogen cycling in streams of the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest. After receiving her PhD Emily held two postdoctoral positions, first exploring the effects of elevated CO2 on soil nitrogen cycling at Duke and then synthesizing river restoration efforts at the University of Maryland before beginning her faculty position in Duke's Department of Biology in September 2004.  Emily is shown here with her daughters (and honorary lab members) Hannah and Gwyneth [Click here for Emily's CV]

Brooke Hassett, Lab Manager

After completing her master's degree at the University of Maryland where she examined stream restoration activities throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed, Brooke joined our team and has led our efforts to understand the effects of urbanization and urban stream restoration on stream ecosystem structure and function. [Click here for Brooke's CV]

Dr. Brian Lutz, Postdoctoral Associate

Brian joined the PhD program in fall 2007, graduated in May 2011 and is now pursuing a joint postdoc working with Martin Doyle as well as Emily.  Brian's dissertation work explored the watershed biogeochemistry of protected areas of the southern Appalachians and his new research will explore the effects of coal and gas extraction on water quantity and quality in the central Appalachians. [Click here to visit Brian's webpage]

Ben Colman, Postdoctoral Associate

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Ben joined the lab in 2009 after completing his PhD at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  Ben's general interests include biogeochemistry, ecosystem ecology, and microbial community ecology. Currently, his research is focused on examining the impacts of bothe engineered and natural nanomaterials on biologically mediated biogeochemical functions in soils, streamwater, and sediments.  Ben's research is funded through the Center for the Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology (CEINT). [Click here for Ben's CV or here for Ben's website]

Kayleigh Somers, PhD Student

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Kayleigh began her PhD in Ecology in 2008 and is coadvised by Dr. Dean Urban (NSOE) and Emily.  Kayleigh's research is focused on detailed land cover characterization with the chemical, thermal and biological conditions of streams in urbanizing landscapes. Her work merges landscape ecology with stream biogeochemistry and is supported in part by the NSF Urban Long Term Research Area program (NSF ULTRA). Click here for Kayleigh's website or here for her CV.

Anna Fedders, Field & Lab Technician

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Anna joined the lab in 2010, first as a data miner and now as our indispensable project manager for our coastal plain research effort.  Anna graduated from Wake Forest University with a degree in Chemistry in 2009.

Raven Bier, PhD Student

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Raven rejoined the lab as a PhD student in August 2010.  Raven worked in the lab as a technician in 2007-2008 and then spent a year at UGA in a plant genetics lab and a year at UCSB in a community ecology lab before returning to work on biogeochemistry.  Raven is working on our mountaintop mining research program. She is interested in the influences that environmental contaminants have on ecosystem functions. [Click here for Raven's CV]

Ashley Helton, Postdoctoral Associate

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Ashley earned her PhD in 2011 from UGA working with Dr. Geoff Poole of Montana State.  Ashley's dissertation work merged hydrologic modeling and field biogeochemistry to understand the hydrobiogeochemistry of large floodplain aquifers.  Ashley is currently working on our coastal plain wetland research efforts to understand how saltwater intrusion affects wetland C and N cycling - her work within the project is focused on linking microbial biogeochemical models with wetland hydrology models and on field measurements of anaerobic metabolic pathways in wetland sediments.  [Click here for Ashley's website.]

Kris Voss, PhD Student

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Kris joined the lab as a PhD student in June 2011. After earning a BS in chemistry from Texas A&M, he taught high school chemistry and environmental science in San Diego from 2001 to 2009, during which time he also earned an MS in environmental engineering. Through his master’s thesis and subsequent collaboration with Ken Reckhow at Duke, Kris became interested in applying Bayesian statistical models to examine how stream biota, particularly benthic macroinvertebrates, respond to land-use change at the landscape scale. His research complements our mountaintop mining research effort by describing biological responses to novel environmental gradients across progressively larger ecological scales. Kris also investigates the shifts in an aquatic community’s biological and functional trait composition that result from such widespread land-use change. [Click here for Kris's CV]



Matt Ross, PhD student

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Matt is from Colorado, where he also completed his undergraduate degree in ecology and evolutionary biology at CU-Boulder. His previous research was in the aridlands of Utah, but he will now be working on the mountaintop removal mining project with a specific interest in how novel/designer ecosystem ideas may be applied to understand post-mining ecosystems. 

Lab Alumni (listed from most recently departed backwards)


Dr. Alison Appling, Alison earned her Ph.D. in May 2012 and is now a postdoctoral associate with Jim Heffernan in the Nicholas School (fortunately for us, she's right next door)

Dr. Marcelo Ardon - former postdoctoral associate (2007-2011), current an assistant professor at East Carolina University.

Medora Burke-Scoll - Former project manager for our coastal wetland work from 2008-2011.  Medora is now teaching environmental sciences at Eastern Alamance High School in Mebane, NC

Dr. Elizabeth Sudduth - former PhD student (2011), currently an assistant professor at Georgia Gwinnett College

Charles Colbert - Wunder-grad research technician (2006-2010), currently working for a consulting firm in Raleigh, NC

Dr. Jennifer Follstad-Shah, NSF Bioinformatics Postdoctoral Associate (2007-2010), currently adjunct assistant professor at Utah State University

Dr. Jennifer Morse - former PhD student (2010), currently a postdoctoral associate at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies with Peter Groffman

Jill Greiner - former FACE project research technician, currently graduate student at University of Virginia

Catherine Carter - MEM 2010 student, currently a consultant with Tetra Tech

Dr. Liyan Yin - Visiting Postdoctoral Associate, currently associate professor at Wuhan Botanical Garden,  Chinese Academy of Sciences

Andrea Martin - former FACE project research technician,recent MEM (May '12) graduate of the Nicholas School

Dr. Rich Phillips - former postdoctoral associate, currently an Assistant Professor at Indiana University

Hayes Neely - MEM 2008 student, currently working for NOAA in Washington, D.C.

Peter Cada - MEM 2007 student, currently a consultant with Tetra Tech