Cast of Summer 2015

With a new project comes a new cast of students and technicians! Here's a brief introduction to some of the new faces around Hengill this summer.

Abbi White is a junior at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota majoring in Biology. She is interested in understanding the ecological stoichiometry of primary producers in streams. This is also Abbi’s first time doing field research.

Bailey Kimbel is joining us from Alabama and will be working as a research technician this summer. Originally from Minnesota, she graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2013 with a bachelor’s degree in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior. She has aided in various ecological research projects from wheat disease studies to plant evolution.  Her positions have also brought her into the field, working in Western Wyoming and Costa Rica.  After spending a year taking care of cats and dogs as a veterinary technician, Bailey is thrilled for the opportunity to return to the research world with the Hengill team. While she is new to stream ecology research, she is more than ready to immerse herself in the intricacies of the field and excited to see what will be revealed while performing this research.



Bree Vculek is an undergraduate student studying biology and chemistry at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, MN. She joined the Welter lab as a research collaborator in 2014, and is interested in the physiological responses of nitrogen fixing cyanobacteria across temperature and nutrient gradients in stream ecosystems.








Delor Sander is from St. Catherine University (SCU) in Minnesota and is working as a lab and field technician for Dr. Jill Welter. As an undergraduate student at SCU, Delor spent the summer of 2012 working in Hengill and is back for a second summer to help collect and process samples. She is interested in continuing her career in science through a journalistic perspective and will be going to graduate school for Scientific Communication – if she doesn’t end up staying in Iceland after the project is over!

Hilary Madinger is a Ph.D. student at the University of Wyoming with work related to the Hengill crew’s biogeochemical investigation of nutrient cycling and especially nitrogen fixation. She will be assisting with the measurements of stream nutrient uptake and denitrification during the stable isotope addition. Additionally, Hilary will estimate diel nitrogen fixation fluxes in a few of the warm streams with low gas exchange. Then the rest of the summer will be spent running isotope samples and modeling the data collected in Hengill streams.

Kate Henderson is starting her Ph.D. research under Wyatt this summer, looking at the effects of warming and nutrient enrichment on secondary production. She just finished her M.S. in Biology from Tennessee Tech University, where she studied drivers of algal productivity in agriculturally managed lakes. Before grad school she worked as a field technician in Mexico and interned with a study abroad program in Costa Rica. At some point, she's hoping to ride an Icelandic horse.

Luke Ginger is an ecologist from Chicago working as a field tech for Wyatt Cross this summer. He did his undergraduate at the University of St. Thomas (2012), and received a master’s in Biology from Miami University (2014) where he worked with Mike Vanni. He is interested in the different variables driving N:P in aquatic ecosystems from agricultural activity to fish excretions. Outside of ecology, he is interested in playing music and travelling.