Montana Water Center

STUDENT-LED RESEARCH

Each year, the Montana Water Center awards Montana graduate students with financial support through a Montana Rural Water Research Fellowship and the Water Research Fellowship Program. To learn more about the current Montana Water Center Fellows, please see below. 

(Current student projects are funded by USGS grant G21AP10628-03. Funded students please credit the Montana Water Center and this grant number in any papers, presentations, and outreach materials.)

2025-2026 Water resource FELLOWS

safal adhikari. Multi-Scale Sensing to Assess Irrigation Effects on Wheat Production

marina barbosa santos. understanding Hydrologic Connectivity in Gravel-Bed Rivers

josie grigsby. Hydrology and geochemistry of natural acid rock drainage at the headwaters of the South Boulder River, montana

Nicholas hudson. Evaluating Effects of Flow on Juvenile Trout Production and Survival in Southwest Montana Watersheds

cora steinbach. Green ribbons in a blue-ribbon fisherY: predicting nuisance algal blooms using river metabolism

Past student fellows

2024-2025 Fellows

Brooke Baine-White (Bannerman): Investigating How wildfires affect primary productivity and algal community assemblage in mountain lakes.

Bridger Creel: A Bird’s eye view: using tree swallows (tachycineta bicolor) to assess the effects of aquatic metal contamination on riparian insectivores in the upper clark fork river superfund site.

Riley Henson: quantifying geomorphic resilience in a broad set of river systems, to help predict how the landscape reacts to disturbances to better prepare for natural disasters, such as floods.

Megan Robinson: assessing water and nitrogen use efficiency in irrigated fields.

2024-2025 rural water research fellowship Program

russell conti: how does urban development in mountain west communities impact aquatic ecosystem across time and space

2023-2024 FELLOWS

STEPHANIE AYOTTE: Temporal and spatial variation of microbial community dynamics

ERIN BJORKLuND: Drought Conflict and Cooperation in Montana - Trends Across the State 

lila RICKENBAUGH: Assessment of Water Availability for Irrigation within a Mountainous Catchment in Montana

DYLAN WHITE: The influence of nutrients on the accumulation of dissolved, colloidal, and particulate metals in a stream food web 

2023-2024 rural water research fellowship Program

Madisan Chavez: Assessing groundwater Pfas contamination from abandoned waste disposal sites on the Crow reservation

2022-2023 FELLOWS

Kylie Bodle: Aerobic Granular Sludge: a Novel Approach to Pharmaceutical Removal from Wastewater

juan Andres changoluisa: Chemical and Biological Impacts of Increased Treated Mining Discharge on a Restored Ecosystem

zack deluca: Hydrogeomorphic response to flooding in northern Yellowstone National Park

NATE HEILI: Aquatic insect emergence in irrigation canals

caitlin Mayernik: Riparian corridors control stream concentrations of excess nitrate delivered from non-irrigated cultivated soils in semiarid climates

Mohammad Mozaffari: Cold Climate Nitrification in Treatment Wetlands

Brett oliver: Coupling Numerical Hydrologic Models with Geodetic Inversions to Illuminate the Role of Fractured Bedrock in Storing and Releasing Water in Mountainous Watersheds

samantha poteet: Estimating the Value of Surface Water in Irrigated Agriculture

jonathon shikany: Characterizing the distribution and microbial profile of pathogenic free-living amoeba, including Naegleria fowleri, in Montana recreational waters

harris sloan: Quantifying Beaver Dispersal and Colonization in Western Montana

Ada smith: Managing for Drought & Climate - Understanding Adaptive Decision-making Among Montana Ranchers

2021-2022 Fellows

Ninad Bhagwat:  Estimating the Snowmelt Derived Runoff in Upper Missouri River Basin with Snowmelt Runoff Modelling

Jackson Birrell and James Frakes: Testing the Climate Variability Hypothesis in Montana’s aquatic insects from thermally-distinct habitats

Elizabeth Breitmeyer: Characterizing hydrostratigraphic communication between unconsolidated sediment aquifers of the East Flathead region through hydrogeophysical surveysSamuel Fritz: Net-Spinning Caddisfly Density Affects Streambed Retention of Microplastics

samuel fritz: Net-Spinning Caddisfly Density Affects on Streambed Retention of Microplastics

Tyler Kamp: Groundwater and Soil Chemistry Controls on Surface Water Quality at Abandoned Mines

Andrew Lahr: Quantifying the effects of beaver mimicry on fish habitat and populations in Western Montana

Zachary Lauffenburger: Assessment of the hydro-economics of agriculture in Montana

Zach Maguire: The ecological importance of tributary confluences to macroinvertebrate and trout populations in the Madison River, Montana

Jenna Rolle: Determining controls on snowpack and soil isotopic spatial heterogeneity 

Mercedes Salazar: Impacts of Beaver Dam Mimicry Structures on Groundwater-Surface Water Interactions in Lower Mountain Riparian Systems

Amos Taiswa: Biofouling Mitigation using Polydopamine/Copper Coater Polypropylene Spacers with Periodic Hydrogen Peroxide Cleaning 

2020-2021 Fellows

Gabriel Bromley: Exploring Trends in Warm Season Precipitation in the northern North American Great Plains

Kristen Cook: Reproductive and life-history traits of western pearlshell mussels in Montana

Anna Crockett: Modeling Adaptive Capacity of Water Law by Integrating Water Rights into a Hydro-economic Model: A Case Study of Instream Flow Policies in MT

Joseph Dehnert: A hand-held, structure from motion, photogrammetric approach to riparian and stream assessment and monitoring of the Upper Clark Fork River, Montana

Katie Fogg: Effects of Floodplain Shade on Hyporheic & Stream Channel Temperatures

Ross Palomaki: Developing the first river ice mapping tool for the Yellowstone River

Jose Sanchez-Ruiz: Using DNA metabarcoding techniques to evaluate responses of river food webs to heavy metals along the Clark Fork River, Montana

2019-2020 Fellows

Jackson Birrell: Variation in oxygen, temperature and flow in streams and how they influence the behavior of the giant salmonfly, Pteronarcys californica

Kimberly Bray: Primary controls on nitrate use in lotic systems

Jesse Bunker: Quantification of Groundwater Flux at a hydrothermal Feature in the Yellowstone River

Leah Joyce: influence of beavers on amphibian parasite dispersal in Glacier National Park 

Holly Nesbitt: Dynamics of changing water availability and water rights administration in the Upper Clark Fork River Basin

Luke Thompson: Optimization of two-stage solids and nutrient removal wetland treatment system operating at a fish hatchery in a cold climate

Benjamin Tumolo: Aquatic Insect Ecosystem Engineering Creates Resource Hot Spots in Montana Streams

2018-2019 Fellows

Kristen Cook: Mountain Whitefish susceptibility to a myxozoan parasite under thermal stress

Hannah Koepnick: Microbial reduction of selenium at the Colstrip power plant

Miranda Margetts: Assessing pharmaceuticals in Montana’s waste water and drinking water

Kaitlin Perkins: Interactive effects of metal and nutrient cycling in the Upper Clark Fork River 

Emma Raeside: Understanding root-microbe interactions in the rhizosphere

Isaiah Robertson: Limitations to Photosynthesis in Silver Bow Creek

2017-2018 Fellows

Christine Brissette: Science to inform restoration: Effects of channel reconstruction on hydraulic exchange and baseflow generation

Jonathon Byers: Remote Sensing of Snowpack in the Bitterroot Mountains of Montana Using Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS)

Charles Shama: Estimate Mountain Front Recharge in a Basin and Range Provence in Southwest Montana

Caelan Simeone: Leaf Water Potential as an Improved Predictor of Drought Induced Conifer Stress

Emily Stoick: Microbially induced metal precipitation and co‐precipitation in mine influenced

Robin Welling: Influence of wood on sediment storage in a low order stream in the northern Rocky Mountains

2016-2017 Fellows

Jordan allen: Glacial influence on nitrogen cycling: Beartooth Mountains, MT

Keenan Brame: Transportation, sediment-association, and the future of microbial contaminants on the little bighorn river

Rachel Powers: Assessing riparian ecosystem condition and monitoring recovery from natural and anthropogenic disturbance

Claire Qubain: Snowpack and soil moisture controls on nitrogen availability in a Rocky Mountain conifer forest

Neerja Zambare: Removal of selenium by co-precipitation with microbially induced calcite precipitation

2015-2016 Fellows

Sarah Benjaram: Landscape evolution

Michael Jahnke: EFFECTS OF WILDFIRE ON WATER RESOURCES 

miranda margetts: Improving Public Health

Taylor Wilcox: Conserving Native trout