People

Headshot_AnneJefferson_smallforwebAnne J. Jefferson is a watershed hydrologist and geomorphologist who works where people live, work, and play. Anne grew up on the Mississippi River in southeastern Minnesota and spent summers on Lake Superior. These two places imbued her with a love of water and the dynamic way it shapes landscapes. Anne is a Professor in the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont. She also directs Lake Champlain Sea Grant, the Vermont Water Resources and Lake Studies Center, and the Northeastern States Research Cooperative. You can read more about Anne’s research and public engagement by browsing this site. 

 

Current Research Group

Andrea Stumpf is a research specialist who joined the Watershed Lab in September 2023. Andrea has a M.S. in Environmental Science at Villanova University. Andrea does an amazing job keeping all of the lab projects running and is playing a key role as a researcher on our dam removal project.

Qinqin Liu is a post-doctoral researcher joining the Watershed Lab in September 2026. Qinqin has a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Wisconsin Madison. Qinqin will be modeling stormwater adaptations to climate change that are being considered or adopted by municipalities in the northeastern US. Her work is supported by the USGS’s Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center. 

Nurjahan Begum is a PhD student who joined the Watershed Lab in Fall 2024. Nurjahan has a MS and BSc in Environmental Science from the University of Chittagong, Bangladesh. Nurjahan’s research focuses on microplastics on Lake Champlain shorelines. Her work is funded by the Lake Champlain Basin Program.

Jill Sarazen is a PhD student who joined the Watershed Lab in January 2025. Jill has a MS in Plant and Soil Science from the University of Vermont. Jill works at the Green Infrastructure Collaborative Coordinator for Lake Champlain Sea Grant. Jill’s PhD will involve monitoring and modeling the effects of gravel wetlands on the water quantity and quality in receiving streams. 

Katie Hauer is a MS student who joined the Watershed Lab in summer 2025. Her research focuses on how municipalities in the northeastern U.S. are adapting their stormwater management strategies to climate change. Katie has a B.S. in Environmental Science and B.A. in Philosophy from the University of of Minnesota Duluth. Her work is supported by the USGS’s Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center. 

Sydney Talley is a MS student who joined the Watershed Lab in summer 2026. Her research will examine how a residential stormwater incentive program influences environmental stewardship in participants and championship within their communities, while also identifying barriers to the maintenance and upkeep of installed green infrastructure. Sydney is also a graduate teaching assistant for Lake Champlain Sea Grant’s Watershed Alliance program. Sydney has a B.S. in Agriculture, with a major in Environmental, Soil, and Water Science from the University of Arkansas.

Emma Shiels is an undergraduate in the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont. Emma joined the Watershed Lab in summer 2026 and is helping with research on dam removal and urban streams.

Alumni

Post-Doctoral Researchers

Pedro Avellaneda was a post-doctoral researcher in the Watershed Hydrology group from February 2016 to August 2017. Pedro has a PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of New Hampshire. Pedro is now at the San Francisco Estuary Institute.  Pedro’s post-doc and later collaboration with the Watershed Lab generated 4 papers (Avellaneda et al., 2017, Jefferson et al., 2017, Avellaneda et al., 2020, Hassan et al., 2024). Two of those papers have over 100 citations.

Lakelyn Taylor was a post-doctoral researcher in the Watershed lab from August 2023 through August 2025. She has a PhD in Strategic Communication from the University of Central Florida. Lakelyn’s research focused on flood warning communications and was supported by NOAA via the Cooperative Institute for Research to Operations in Hydrology. Lakelyn’s postdoctoral work has generated two publications so far (Taylor et al., 2025, Briccetti et al., 2025) with several more in the pipeline. 

PhD students

Suffiyan Safdar earned a PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Vermont in Spring 2026.  Suffiyan’s PhD focused on sediment transport and its connection to fluvial geomorphology in urban streams. Suffiyan’s first PhD paper, which focused on suspended sediment hysteresis dynamics in Cleveland streams, was published in ACS ES&T Water in 2024. Suffiyan’s most recent paper,  “Stream suspended sediment supply and transport regimes in urban watersheds across the United States”, is in Communications Earth and Environment. Suffiyan is now a post-doc in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Vermont, working on CIROH-funded research on erosive flood hazards, with Anne, Elizabeth Doran, and Rebecca Diehl.

Zia Ul Hassan earned a PhD in Applied Geology from Kent State University in December 2023. Zia’s PhD dissertation is “Assessing the Impacts of Climate Change and Stormwater Management on the Flow Regime of Urban Streams: Case Studies of Cleveland, Ohio and Denver, Colorado.” Zia’s work was part of the NSF-funded STORMS project. He has a paper published in Journal of Hydrology (Hassan et al., 2024), a co-authored paper in Freshwater Science (Blinn et al., 2025), a manuscript in review, and a manuscript in preparation. After a post-doc at Tsinghua University, Zia is now a researcher at the Danish  Ministry of Climate and Energy.

MS students (18)

  • Sabrina Koetter is a MS student who is coadvised by Anne and Kris Stepenuck in the Watershed, Education, Science, and Policy lab. Sabrina’s research focuses on pathways of information sharing and outcomes for participants in volunteer water monitoring programs. Sabrina is defending in August 2026, and now works for the Lake Champlain Basin Program.
  • Nageen Farooq earned her MS in Geology from Kent State University in May 2024. Nageen’s research focused on the mobility and geomorphic effects of anthropogenic debris in streams, as part of an NSF-funded project.  Nageen works for MAJESTIC Developers in Houston, Texas. Nageen’s research was published as Farooq et al. (2025) in Science of the Total Environment. 
  • Jeff Timmons earned his MS in Geology from Kent State University in December 2020. Jeff’s thesis research focused on lake effect precipitation and snow as drivers of spatial variability in surface and groundwater isotopes in northeastern Ohio. Jeff’s work was supported by a GSA student research grant and a grant from the Kent State Geology department. Jeff is now a Geologist for the Bureau of Land Management in Carlsbad, New Mexico. Jeff’s dataset contributed to a paper in PLOS ONE (Stantis et al., 2024). 
  • Hayley Buzulencia earned her M.S. in Geology from Kent State University in November 2019. Hayley’s research focused on sulfur dynamics in an urban wetland. She was co-advised by Dr. Lauren Kinsman-Costello. Hayley’s research was supported by funding from Cleveland Metroparks. She now works as Senior Water Treatment Operator for Seattle Public Utilities.
  • Mary Plauche earned her M.S. in Geology at Kent State University in June 2019. Mary’s thesis research focused on how urban infrastructure influences the spatial and temporal variability of chloride and nitrate in headwater streams. Her work was supported by a GSA student research grant, the Department of Geology, and the Kent State University Research Council. Mary now works as a project scientist at SLR Consulting in Marietta, Georgia.
  • Catherine Ruhm earned her M.S. in Geology from Kent State University in November 2018. Catherine’s research focused on soils and geomorphology of abandoned surface mines now located in Cuyahoga Valley National Park (CVNP). Catherine’s work contributed to a paper in Land Degradation and Development (Ruggles et al., 2021) and one in Geoderma (Back et al., 2024).
  • Garrett Blauch earned his M.S. degree in Geology at Kent State University in August 2018. Garrett now works for AECOM as a GIS specialist in Pittsburgh, PA. Garrett’s research was published as Blauch and Jefferson (2019).
  • Laura Sugano (now Laura Johansen) earned her M.S degree in Geology in May 2018. Laura’s research focused on comparing the hydrologic and water quality effectiveness of bioretention cells and green roofs. Her work was supported by Cleveland Metroparks. She was co-advised by Dr. Lauren Kinsman-Costello. Laura works as a senior geologist for Roux Associates in the greater Chicago area.
  • Eric Traub earned his M.S. degree in Geology at Kent State University in May 2016. He was co-advised by Dr. David Singer. Eric is now an environmental engineer for the Idaho Environmental Coalition. Eric’s research was published (Singer et al., 2018) in Elementa.
  • Kimberly Jarden earned her M.S. degree in Geology at Kent State University in April 2015. Kimm is the Sustainability Program Manger for Arista Networks. Kimm’s research was published as Jarden et al., 2016 and Turner et al., 2016. Her first author paper has 184 citations as of November 2025.
  • Darren Reilly completed his M.S. in Geology from Kent State University in April 2014, co-supervised by Anne Jefferson and David Singer. Darren’s thesis research focused on sources of groundwater contamination for residential wells in northeastern Pennsylvania. He currently works as a project geologist for Amentum. Darren’s research was published in Environmental Earth Sciences (Reilly et al., 2015).
  • J. Brock Freyer completed his M.S. degree in Earth Sciences at UNC Charlotte in spring 2013, and he is a Wetland Ecologist for Stantec in South Burlington, Vermont. Brock’s research was published in Anthropocene (Freyer and Jefferson, 2013).
  • Mackenzie Osypian completed her M.S. degree in Civil Engineeringat UNC Charlotte in spring 2013, and she works as an environmental engineer for the State of New York Department of Environmental Conservation.
  • Alea Tuttle completed her degree M.S. degree in Earth Sciences at UNC Charlotte  in summer 2012, and she now works as a science specialist team teacher in North Carolina. Alea’s thesis generated two publications (Tuttle et al., 2014; McMillan et al., 2014) .
  • Brandon Blue completed his M.S. degree in Earth Sciences at UNC Charlotte in summer 2012 and he now works MacVicar Consulting in Miami, Florida.
  • Ralph McGee completed his M.S. degree in Earth Sciences at UNC Charlotte  in spring 2011, and he works for Hart and Hickman in Charlotte, North Carolina. Ralph’s research was published in Earth Surface Processes and Landforms (Jefferson and McGee, 2013).
  • Cameron Moore completed his M.S. degree in Earth Sciences at UNC Charlotte in spring 2011. Cameron is now a geologist at Mid-Atlantic Associates.

Undergraduate Researchers