The Rubenstein School’s 33^rd Annual Graduate Research Symposium was held on Friday, October 7^th. The event offers an opportunity for students to share with and get feedback on their research from an engaged audience of peers, Rubenstein School faculty and other community members, including members of the Rubenstein School Board of Advisors.

This year’s symposium featured oral presentations by 15 second-year Master’s students and all-day poster presentations by 9 PhD candidates and one Master’s student. Students Margaux Reckard and Ryan Sleeper also presented their research at the Board of Advisors’ meeting held earlier in the day. The symposium concluded with the traditional community reception. 

Many thanks to Carolyn Goodwin Kueffner, Graduate Program Student Services Specialist, who organized this well-attended event with support from graduate student Margaux Reckard. Special thanks to graduate student moderators, Sam Bliss and Jennifer Santoro, and graduate student technical support volunteers, Ariana Cano and Austin Thomas. 

Oral Presentations 

Cody Aylward Estimating the source and distribution of American martens (Martes americana) in Vermont 

Sean Beckett Burlington Geographic: Urban Wilds of the Queen City 

Lyra Brennan An Ecological Assessment of the Pond Brook Watershed in Monkton, VT 

Jamie Ervin Describing Forest Structure in Old Growth Southern Appalachian Cove Forests, A LiDAR-Based Analysis 

Christine Hart To Protect Our Water: A Survey on Pharmaceutical Related Behavior of Vermont Residents 

Molly Heuss Evaluating the Impacts of Southern Pine Beetle on Pitch Pine Forest Dynamics in a Newly Invaded Region 

Ben Kaufman Optimizing Mobile Device GPS Data Collection to Capture Long Distance Travel 

Hannah Phillips An Ecological Assessment of the Atlas Timberlands for The Nature Conservancy and the Vermont Land Trust 

Margaux Reckard The Social Construction of Nature at Vermont Ski Areas: Examining Nature Discourses in Conventional and New Mass Media 

Julia Runcie Guiding Recreation at Travertine Hot Springs 

Emma Sass The Long-term Effects of Logging, Hurricane Disturbance, and Salvage Logging on Old-growth Forest Stands in New Hampshire 

Hallie Schwab The Emotional Dimensions of Succession Planning for Family Forest Owners in the Northeastern United States 

Ryan Sleeper Monitoring Stream Ecosystem Processes Using an Array of Advanced in-situ Water Quality Sensors 

Amanda Strickland Trails’ Tales: Analyzing the Construction of Stories Along and About Vermont Nature Trails 

Finn Yarbrough  Navigating the Anthropocene with Children’s Ecomedia

Poster Presentations 

Sonya Ahamed The Food-Energy-Water Nexus in a Growing US Metropolitan Area: Exploring Spatial Data Integration and City-Relevant Visualization in Denver, Colorado 

Lindsay Barbieri Integrated sUAS Greenhouse Gas Measurements and Imagery for Land Use Emissions Monitoring 

Sam Bliss Ecomodernism and Degrowth 

Laura Edling A Systems Perspective on the Shift to Modern Wood Heating Technology in the Northern Forest Region

David Gudex-Cross Enhanced Forest Cover Mapping using Spectral Unmixing and Object-based Classification of Multitemporal Landsat Imagery

Kyle Motley, M.S. Candidate Feeding in Caged Releases of Two Species of Silver Fly, Leucopis argenticollis and L. piniperda, on Hemlock Woolly Adelgid, Adelges tsugae, in the Eastern U.S. 

Brian O’Malley Seasonal Dynamics of Zooplankton Resource Use Efficiency in Hyper-eutrophic Shelburne Pond, Vermont 

Sarah Pears Herbaceous Plant Biodiversity Following Wind Disturbance and Salvage Harvest in Northern Mixed Deciduous Forests 

Elizabeth E. Perry Cityscape Connections: National Park Service Collaborations for Urban Relevancy and Resilience 

Nicole Rogers Long-term Regeneration Dynamics in Northern Hardwood Forests of the Northeast