Erin recently discussed her work tracing the fates of carbon in streams and rivers for the Society for Freshwater Science's "Making Waves" November podcast. Link to summary, mp3, and featured articles: https://freshwater-science.org/news/making-waves-ep-26-0

Master's student Brynn O'Donnell was 1 of 3 winners of the 2nd annual Nutshell Games at Virginia Tech! Brynn spoke about "ghost streams" - streams that have been engineered to flow under cities through pipes. View Brynn's 90-second talk in the link above. More about the Nutshell Games: https://communicatingscience.isce.vt.edu/Announcements.html

Erin Hotchkiss recently gave an invited seminar at the 2017 Arctic Research Symposium in Abisko, Sweden. She presented her work on “Carbon cycling in streams and rivers: Linking processes and ecosystems” in a special session on “In-stream processes and landscape integration across seasons”. The symposium was a great opportunity to learn more about recent work in arctic terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems; re-connect with collaborators from Sweden; make new connections with European scientists; and spend some quality time with arctic rivers, wild berries, and northern lights.

Erin finally got around to replacing her lost copy of Hynes The Ecology of Running Waters text (no idea where it wandered off to), took a gamble by buying a used copy on Amazon, and was very, very pleasantly surprised! If you don't know who Ruth Patrick or Noel Hynes were, please take a moment to read about them and their incredible contributions to science.

We had an exciting summer of growth and science! MSc students Brynn O'Donnell and Stephen Plont joined the lab and got their feet wet in local streams and lots of literature review. Brynn quickly became our storm-chasing Stroubles/urban biogeochemistry expert and Stephen is now our resident sensor-logging master/scholar of spiraling. Our undergrad research rockstar, Morgan Gallagher, sampled greenhouse gases in Stroubles Creek through its transition from urban, agricultural, and more forested drainage areas. Sample/data analyses and plans for future research are ongoing!

Erin also presented her research and enjoyed time with new and old science friends at the Symposium for European Freshwater Sciences in the Czech Republic in July. Lots of great new science, old art and architecture, and tasty Czech beer!

The Hotchkiss Lab has been exploring potential research and teaching sites on upper and lower Stroubles Creek. Monitoring, restoration, research, and education efforts by others in the Virginia Tech community (e.g., LEWAS Lab & StREAM Lab) will provide an excellent foundation for upcoming undergraduate and graduate student research. Stay tuned for future info about ongoing work at these sites!

Hotchkiss joined several current/past Virginia Tech Stream Team and Society for Freshwater Science members for the March for Science in Washington, D.C.!

Enjoyed exploring the New River near Blacksburg with Marie Gérardin, a visiting M.Sc. student from the CarBBAS group in Montréal! Beautiful float, lots of water, and hints of spring from Pembroke to Bluff City.

A few members of Virginia Tech's Stream Team/Ecosystem Research Group joined professor emeritus (and original Stream Teamer) Jack Webster for a weekend at Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory. Lots of streams, logs, watersheds, and salamanderin'!