Where are they now? SBE Graduate Student Krista Slemmons

Congratulations to SBE graduate student Krista Slemmons on receiving a faculty position! Slemmons accepted a position at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point this fall semester where she is teaching biology courses, as well as conducting research and supervising biology student teachers during their teaching experience.

Slemmons received her undergraduate degree at Denison University with a B.S in Biology, and received her master’s degree from Miami University in environmental science as well as Wright State University.  Slemmons studied at the University of Maine to receive her Ph.D. in Ecology & Environmental Science.

During her time at the University of Maine, Slemmons research focused on artic & alpine lakes that were fed by glaciers using pale- ecological and modern techniques to do so.  Her research focused on diatoms, an extremely temperature sensitive species of algae, and how they were affected through time as glaciers continue to recede.  During a research project her first summer at the University of Maine, she preformed a lake experiment in the Bear tooth mountains located in Southern Montana.  Using modern techniques, she used carbon-14 uptake experiments to measure the productivity of the algae in a glacier fed lakes and a “snow fed” lake.  She also preformed nutrient enrichment experiments, in which she would add nutrients to both the glacier fed lakes and the snow fed lakes to see how the algae would respond.  In order to compare changes that occur to the algae communities before and after, and how they change as the glaciers change, they looked at a core dated as far back as 3,000 years ago. She also had the opportunity to look at a 9,000-year-old core from East Greenland, a project that was in collaboration with the department of earth sciences.

Slemmons explained the monumental influences Umaine had on her career, and expressed a great appreciation for the climate change institute as well as the School of Biology and Ecology for giving her an interdisciplinary approach to science, as well as a broader interpretation of the world around her. “These programs opened up my mind and gave me new insight into how the world really works,” says Slemmons.

During Slemmons’ time here, she was a teaching assistant for Biology 100 & 200, received the Chase distinguished Research Assistantship, the Correll Fellowship, and a National Park Service Fellowship.

We wish Krista Slemmons and her family the best of luck in Wisconsin!