Natural Resources & Environmental Science
Outstanding Master Student
The Outstanding Master Student Award is given annually to graduate students who have distinguished records within their programs, shown leadership qualities on campus and worked for the improvement of our College.
Mary joined the Fire and Dryland Ecosystems Lab as a master's student in the fall of 2019, working with her advisor, Dr. Erin Hanan. In the last two years at University, her research has focused on wildland fire and soils. Specifically, she collaborated with the Forest Service Fire Behavior Assessment Team to investigate biogeochemical cycling following a fire in northern California, and she developed an open-source modeling tool that allows researchers to predict soil heating and associated belowground effects during wildland fires. She also validated a new tool for measuring soil temperatures during and after wildland fires. Her work helps advance methodology both in the field and in modeling for future wildland fire studies. She will be continuing to work with wildland fire, although from a different perspective, on a Forest Service fire crew in California.