Madelyn Maffia, Masters Student Water Resources Science

Maddie received her B.S. in Environmental Science with concentrations in Aquatic Biology and Environmental Water Resources from Oregon State University in 2020. She has experience working with limnological and riverine sample collection and instrumentation from her various roles throughout her undergraduate. Following her graduation, she worked as an AmeriCorps member, teaching youth at an underprivileged elementary school in California. In returning to OSU for her M.S., she will be researching ideal stream characteristics and their impact on the freshwater biota in the Mill Creek complex.

Zachary Perry, PhD Student in Water Resources Science

Zach grew up in Corning, a small town in the Finger Lakes region of NY. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from the University of Rochester in 2015. In 2021, Zach began his PhD with Catalina with an interest in improving community resilience to the impacts of climate change. He studies how mountain streamflow is influenced by the landscape and how these interactions may shift with a changing climate. Primarily working in the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest, he is using water stable isotopes, among other techniques, to evaluate stream response to storm events, baseflow conditions during dry periods, and hillslope/stream connectivity. His overall objective is to improve our understanding of how the landscape stores and transports water through a watershed. These findings may have implications for ecosystem health, water resource availability, and flood risk mitigation. In his free time, you can find Zach in the kitchen, reading a novel, or exploring the natural world.

Jaime Ortega, Masters Student Water Resources Science

Jaime received his B.S. in Watershed Management and Environment Science from the University of Panama in 2017. He worked as a hydrometric technician in the hydrometeorological services of Panama, measuring streamflow, collecting water levels, and giving maintenance to the hydrometeorological station network in the west of Panama. At OSU, Jaime is investigating the relative streamflow contribution of some mountainous headwater streams, considered snow-dominant basins, to a higher stream order using water stable isotopes and stream chemistry (major cations and anions) in the HJ Andrews at Oregon in order to understand potential water sources and flow paths in the river network..

Jesse Attias, Masters Student Water Resources Science

Jesse’s research interests center around the connectivity between surface waters – especially the upper reaches of streams and rivers – and their surrounding landscapes. By disentangling this connection, he hopes to better our understanding of how climate change and anthropogenic disturbances influence the water quality, water quantity, and ecosystem health of surface waters. Jesse received a B.S. in Environmental Science with a concentration in Environmental Biology from the University of Vermont in 2018. Before starting at OSU, he worked for the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and the University of California, Santa Cruz.