Achievement

ABS trainee Katie Roach graduated in August 2012 and has published five papers from her dissertation and related projects, including contributions to ecological and policy science. This body of work integrates basic research findings on the ecology of large rivers in tropical and temperate regions with challenges of natural resource management (environmental flows, fisheries production, environmental contaminants). For example, mining of gold deposits in rivers in the Madre de Dios department in Peru led to concerns about mercury pollution. Dr. Roach analyzed mercury concentrations in fishes in one river with little mining and found migratory species had mercury concentrations above agency criterion for human consumption. Her study, with Jacobsen, Stronza, Winemiller indicates fishes bioaccumulate mercury from heavily mined areas and migrate to unmined areas, posing a risk to human health. Dr. Roach is now a postdoc at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières.