About me
Kate is developing hyperspectral bioindicators that may be useful in monitoring vegetative stress responses to various kinds of environmental contamination associated with nuclear energy production. Hyperspectral imagery has the potential to identify spectroscopic features that indicate contaminant-induced stress in plants. Identifying such features could lead to unprecedented developments in environmental monitoring using airborne sensors to collect remote, high-frequency, non-destructive estimates of pollutants on the landscape. As hyperspectral imagery becomes more widely available through satellite and airborne instrumentation, there is greater opportunity to use existing vegetation on the landscape as passive, low-cost bioindicators for early detection of contamination — before there are visible signs of vegetative stress. Developing such bioindicators would build capacity to detect accidental releases and delineate legacy contamination over large spatial scales to facilitate environmental remediation or mitigation.
Operationalizing this technology requires that we: 1) Better quantify the physiological and chemical changes in plants experiencing contaminant-induced stressors 2) Reliably differentiate between different contaminants 3) Parse interactions between contaminants and other environmental stressors (drought, nutrient deficiencies) 4) Characterize type-specific stress responses and interactions across diverse types of vegetation and contaminants
Current Projects Hyperspectral bioindicators for multiple-stressors: To identify potential bioindicators that differentiate between different types of metal toxicity and other forms of stress (chromium VI, copper, and copper + drought exposures) in tall fescue, Kate conducted a pot experiment at the OJ Noer Turfgrass Facility and collected tissue samples, chlorophyll fluorescence, leaf reflectance, and hyperspectral imagery.
Hyperspectral bioindicators for tritium exposure: To identify possible bioindicators of tritium exposure in loblolly pines, Kate is using hyperspectral imagery from the PRISMA satellite and leaf reflectance data collected over a tritium gradient by collaborators at the Savannah River National Laboratory.
Kate is a PhD student in the Townsend Lab. She holds a BS in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior from the University of Minnesota and a MSc in Global Change Ecology from the University of Bayreuth (Germany).
