Caitlin Magel
Caitlin’s research is motivated by the goal to increase the resilience of coastal systems to climate and human-driven changes. Currently, she is modeling the social-ecological linkages between stormwater, land use, and endpoints in Puget Sound to support management decisions aimed at multi-benefit solutions. Caitlin collaborates with Dr. Tessa Francis at UW Tacoma’s Puget Sound Institute. Previously, her research focused on the ecology and ecosystems services of estuarine habitats, including seagrass beds and salt marshes, with a focus on nutrient and carbon cycling. Caitlin completed her Ph.D. in the Department of Integrative Biology at Oregon State University (2020) and holds a M.S. in Marine Science from the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill (2014). During graduate school, she participated in OSU’s National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT), which focused on risk and uncertainty in coupled natural-human marine systems through transdisciplinary research, and she was supported by the Margaret A. Davidson National Estuarine Research Reserve graduate research fellowship at South Slough NERR in Oregon. She hails from the Midwest and received a B.A. in Biology and Environmental Science from Lawrence University in Wisconsin.
Laura Nelson
Laura’s research is interdisciplinary and centers on how fishing communities on the West coast of the US are affected by and adapting to climate change. She works to further the inclusion of social factors like perceptions of adaptive capacity and food security into our understanding of climate change vulnerability. Laura completed her PhD in the School of Environment and Forest Sciences at UW in 2021, during which her research was supported by The Nature Conservancy and graduate fellowship through the Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center. Laura also holds a Masters of Marine Affairs from UW, and received a B.A. in Biology from Dartmouth College. Between her time at SMEA and her PhD she worked for several years for the Makah Tribe, first as a Hershman Marine Policy Fellow and then as a consultant for the Makah Office of Marine Affairs, work that directly inspired some of her doctoral research. She is originally from outside of Chicago and still very fond of the lakes of the northern Midwest.
Ericka Hegeman
Ericka Hegeman is a GIS Research Scientist who is working on conservation planning and prioritization as it relates to green stormwater mitigation, social justice, and environmental benefits. She holds a MS in Ecology from Utah State University and a BS in Environmental Science from Western Washington University. She has worked on endangered amphibian recovery, ecological risk assessment, and habitat and space use modeling of endangered species. She is excited to put her scientific skills to use on environmental and social justice issues in the Puget Sound area.