Dr. Morales-Williams joined the faculty of the Rubenstein School in August 2017. Her research and teaching program focuses on nutrient flux and energy flow via land-water linkages and addresses the role of anthropogenic disturbance and climate change processes in the formation and maintenance of harmful cyanobacteria blooms. She teaches a limnology course in the fall.

She recently completed her doctoral degree in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology at Iowa State University. She worked in Dr. John A. Downing’s limnology laboratory to investigate triggers of cyanobacterial dominance in lakes. As a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Minnesota, she investigated the impacts of terrestrial biodiversity on downstream aquatic microbial communities.