Delta Science Fellows 2020

The Delta Science Program and California Sea Grant are pleased to announce ten recipients of the 2020 Delta Science Fellowship. Each fellowship provides up to two years of support to awardees to pursue research on key topics related to water management and ecosystem health in the San Francisco Bay-Delta. The early-career scientists work collaboratively with academic and community mentors to address priority issues identified in the 2017-2021 Science Action Agenda.

California Sea Grant administers the fellowship program on behalf of the Delta Science Program. State Water Contractors provides additional financial commitment to support three fellows. The recipients include eight University of California (UC) postdoctoral researchers and doctoral graduate students, one California State University (CSU) masters student, and one doctoral student from Stanford University.

The 2020 Delta Science Fellowship awardees are:

• Dave Ayers*, a UC Davis PhD student investigating how different restored tidal wetlands function as refuge from predation and serve as rearing habitat for fishes.
• Denise Colombano, a UC Berkeley postdoctoral researcher exploring how climate change will affect fishes with different life histories and habitat associations across the San Francisco Estuary.
• Chelsea Lam, a UC Davis PhD student examining the impacts of herbicides and nutrients on the growth and stress of algae and photosynthetic bacteria in the San Francisco Estuary.
• Madison Mathers**, a UC Davis PhD student aiming to characterize where and how much detrital material originates in wetlands, the composition of that material, and how detrital particles are exported.
• Alexandra McInturf, a UC Davis PhD student assessing predation risk of juvenile salmon at different temperatures using swim performance.
• Nicol Parker, a UC Santa Barbara PhD student using a model to assess the risk of pesticide pollution in the Bay-Delta.
• Christina Richardson, a UC Santa Cruz postdoctoral researcher using multi-year datasets to explore variability in carbon and nitrogen biogeochemistry across space and time in the Bay-Delta.
• Julie Shahan, a CSU East Bay masters student assessing carbon fluxes between the water and atmosphere in a restored tidal salt marsh in the South San Francisco Bay.
• Richelle Tanner**, a UC Davis postdoctoral researcher studying the impacts of Common Reed (Phragmites) invasion on communities and ecosystems during early stages of tidal restoration in wetlands
• Martin Volaric, a Stanford postdoctoral researcher evaluating nitrogen and carbon cycling within the Bay-Delta, both before and after planned 2021 upgrades to the Sacramento Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant.

* Jointly funded by the Delta Science Program and State Water Contractors

** Funded by State Water Contractors