Welcome Future Rivers 2023/24 Cohort!

This September, a record sixteen new graduate students – along with six new faculty advisors – will be joining our program as our Year 4 cohort, representing seven departments in four colleges across the University of Washington. In true transdisciplinary fashion, participants will be bringing their interest and expertise in everything from the removal of emerging organic contaminants from stormwater to climate solutions journalism, fisheries biology, snow modeling, parasitology, community health, and more. Over the next year, Future Rivers will help these students explore the many angles of freshwater science and their intersectionality, while building skills to prepare them for life after graduate school. Join us in a warm welcome!

Dispatches from the Field

Our students and faculty are in the middle of a busy field season! As a few examples of their great work: Year 3 cohort student Claire Vaage led her first graduate career summer field survey team in the John Day River basin in Oregon, conducting kick-seine sampling for crayfish density estimates and snorkel surveys for steelhead fry. Year 2 cohort student Robin Ruhm traveled to Akiak, Alaska in July to help with arsenic and coliform sampling of the Kuskokwim River, and is headed to Peru this month to sample trees around gold mining sites for mercury levels and reduced photosynthesis. Our Year 3 cohort students are also preparing for their upcoming Summer Institute on the Elwha River in Washington State. Follow us on Twitter @FutureRivers for more real-time adventures!

Spring 2023 Publication Roundup

In addition to Dr. Wood’s, paper “A reconstruction of parasite burden reveals one century of climate-associated parasite decline” that was covered in The New York Times, Smithsonian Magazine, NPR, and local news stations King 5 and Q13 Fox, among at least 70 other outlets, four other Future Rivers faculty – Dr. Butman, Dr. Holtgrieve, Dr. Hossain, and Dr. Olden – had co-authored papers published in early 2023 on, respectively, Integrating terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems to constrain estimates of land-atmosphere carbon exchange; Timing of hydrologic anomalies direct impacts on migration traits in a flood pulse fishery system; Operational forecasting inundation extents using REOF analysis over the lower Mekong; and why people need freshwater biodiversity.

Local K-12 Science Outreach

This past fall, two current trainees, Claire Vaage and Nicole Doran, supplemented the learning of local 4th grade students at Seattle’s Lawton Elementary School with a presentation on salmon in the Pacific Northwest and their importance to indigenous communities. Claire, along with Dr. Faisal Hossain, also gave presentations on river ecosystems and decarbonized food production solutions, respectively, to the students at Bothell’s Innovation Lab High School for Earth Day. A big thank you to all of them for helping to inform and educate the next generation of freshwater scientists!

2023 Excellence in Global Engagement Award

Water Day at UW

New Freshwater Science and Management Minor

The School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences (SAFS) Freshwater Science and Management minor is now open to all UW undergrads. Explore the physical, biological, and social dimensions of freshwater ecosystems to help solve the sustainability challenges of today and tomorrow!

Find out more

Water & the World As We Know It: In Conversation with Giulio Boccaletti

Application Now Open for Future Rivers 2022/23

We are now accepting applications for our third cohort, to begin Autumn quarter 2022. Please spread the word and encourage any prospective or current PhD or Masters students from any discipline across campus to apply by January 28, 2022 to be considered for funding.

Apply Now

Future Rivers Film Series: Into Dust