Smith Fellowship

Posted by Caitlin McDonough MacKenzie

“The past  is the canvass on which our ideas are painted, - the dim prospectus of our future field. We are dreaming of what we are to do.”

Thoreau in Reform Papers.  

Exciting news!

I have been awarded a David H. Smith Fellowship from the Society of Conservation Biology for two years of postdoctoral research on the paleoecology of alpine and subalpine vegetation in Maine. 

Caitlin on Katahdin in Baxter State Park, Maine. 

Caitlin will be studying the history of alpine vegetation communities like this from a very long term (10,000 year!) perspective as a Smith Fellow. 

Under the mentorship of Dr. Jacquelyn Gill at University of Maine and Dr. Abe Miller-Rushing at Acadia National Park, I'll be coring ponds at treeline and counting pollen grains to understand how plant communities responded to past climatic changes over the Holocene. I will use the results to predict how Maine’s alpine plants will respond to future climate change, and make recommendations for the conservation of endangered species.