Team members
Maya Bhatia
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Associate Professor and Campus Alberta Innovates Program (CAIP) Chair in Watershed Science
Maya joined the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department at the University of Alberta in October 2017. Before coming to Edmonton, she completed her PhD in the MIT / Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Joint Program and she was a NSERC and CIFAR Global Scholar Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
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Graduate Students
Patrick White
MSc. student
Patrick completed a BSc in biology at Saint Mary’s University in Nova Scotia where he worked on evolutionary processes driving life history traits in fish. joined the Bhatia Lab in 2021 and is
co-supervised by Erin Bertrand. His research focuses on characterizing the geochemical signature of
glacial meltwater and measuring it's downstream evolution and biological impact as it enters the marine environment in the Canadian High Arctic using a series of incubation experiments. When not in the lab, Patrick enjoys photography, hiking and cycling.
Jillian Lightbown
MSc. student
Jillian’s BSc studies involved a double major in Earth and Atmospheric Science and Biological Sciences.
Her research for her master’s degree follows work conducted during an NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award and her undergraduate thesis. It focuses on microbial communities present in the North Saskatchewan River Watershed. Through analysis of these communities, Jill hopes to answer several questions regarding the health of ecosystems in North Saskatchewan tributaries, including how the freshwater microbial composition changes spatiotemporally, as well as how they relate and interact with eukaryotic communities at higher trophic levels (i.e, periphyton, benthic invertebrates, and fish).
In Jill’s time out of the lab, she loves to golf, read, cook, and binge watching The Mindy Project.
Jenifer Spence
PhD. student
Jenifer started her PhD in 2020 and is co-supervised by Kurt Konhauser, Maya Bhatia, and Erin Bertrand. She has completed a BSc in Biochemistry and Microbiology from the University of Victoria, and a MSc in Microbiology from the University of British Columbia where her work focused on constraining the microbial communities in coastal sediments. Her PhD project focuses on employing meta’omic and geochemical approaches to investigate the impact of microbes on trace metal acquisition, sequestration, and burial in aquatic settings. Outside of the lab she loves baking, being outdoors, and is a plant mom to many.
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Elaine Runge
PhD. student
Leni recently began her PhD in 2022 and is co-supervised by Maya Bhatia, and Erin Bertrand. She has completed an MSc, studying phytoplankton from an institution in Copenhagen. Her PhD project
focuses on assessing the microbial and geochemical fluxes throughout multiple fiords in and
around the Northernmost Canadian community, Grise Fiord. In her downtime, she enjoys gardening
and volunteering.
Ana Heras Duran
PhD. student
Ana started her PhD in 2022 and is co-supervised by Maya Bhatia, and Paul Myers. She holds an MSc focussed on climatology, atmosphere and continental surfaces, obtained from the Grenoble Alpes University in France. Her PhD project aims to assess the understudied physical oceanographic
processes surrounding glacially impacted fiords in Jones Sound, NU, Canada. She enjoys nature and glaciers.
Undergraduate Students
Currently none, for the 2022-2023 academic year
Visiting Students
Rory Burford
MITACS Visiting PhD. Student
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Rory is a UK-based PhD student under the supervision of Professor Jemma Wadham and Dr Christoper Yates (Bristol Glaciology Centre). His research explores controls on the composition of dissolved organic matter (DOM) in glacial rivers. Rory joined the Bhatia Lab in 2021 under a Globalink Research Award, in order to conduct fieldwork with the Canadian Mountain Network. Whilst in Canada, Rory intends to develop a novel incubation experiment to directly measure the age of the respirable DOM fraction, and to add a number of Canadian samples to his global comparison of high mountain glacial DOM. Outside of academia, Rory enjoys reading fiction, playing games with friends, and finding creative ways to hurt himself under the guise of competitive sport.
Alumni
Patrick joined the Bhatia Lab in 2018. His research focused on characterizing geochemical signatures of glacial meltwater and their impact on nutrient and carbon availability in surface waters of the Canadian High Arctic. Prior to joining the lab, he got his Bachelor’s degree from Haverford College, USA where he focused on oil degradation along the gulf of Mexico following the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. Between undergrad and coming to the U of A he worked as a wine biochemist in Napa, CA, grew algae for the Department of Energy, built bicycles in the pacific northwest, taught and made cheese at an organic dairy farm in the Hudson Valley, and hiked the Appalachian trail. Patrick enjoys impromptu sing-alongs and cheese in all its forms.
Patrick Williams
Completed an MSc, Jan 2021
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Charvanna Dhoonmoon
Completed an MSc, Jan 2022
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Charvanaa joined the Bhatia Lab in 2019 and her graduate project focused on characterizing the baseline biogeochemistry of subglacial environments by examining different subglacial carbon pools and microbial habitats. She is from Mauritius Island and she completed her BSc in Chemistry at Haverford College in the United States with her thesis focused on investigating rapid techniques to analyze persistent oil pollutants from marine oil spills affecting coastal environments. In her free time, she enjoys painting, watching movies/series, and going out with friends.
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Hannah joined the Bhatia Lab as an undergraduate student working on her BSc with a double major in Biological Sciences and Earth and Atmospheric Sciences in 2020 on an NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award working on the North Saskatchewan River project. In the fall, she continued working on the project for her undergraduate thesis analyzing nutrient and chemical trends in North Saskatchewan tributaries to assess aquatic ecosystem health. In her free time, she loves to go to the mountains and hike with her dogs, Penny and Copper.
Hannah Holzer
BSc. Student
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Orion Anderson
BSc. Student, Undergrad researcher, 2020
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Orion joined the Bhatia Lab in 2020 to work on an undergraduate thesis. At the time, he was an undergraduate student working on his Computing Science & Earth Sciences double major. During the later years of his undergraduate studies, Orion developed an interest in global climate change. His undergraduate thesis involved analyzing differences in perceived microbial community diversity when sequencing different regions of the 16S rDNA gene as well as using different taxonomic databases utilizing data from the Jones Sound Project. In his spare time, Orion likes to tinker with electronics, paint and raise fish and aquatic invertebrates.
Samuel is an undergraduate student at Mount Royal University planning to complete a BSc in Environmental Science. He joined the Bhatia and Tank lab during the duration of the 2021 CMN Field Season. Having an interest in water biology and water sampling, he contributed towards sampling on the CMN project and processing samples in the lab. In his free time, he enjoys technology, cooking, and going for walks.
Through a gracious opportunity offered by the I-steam Insternship Program presented by the University of Alberta, Lakoda worked in the Tank and Bhatia Labs during the 2021 summer field season. The projects that she helped with were the CMN project as well as the NSR project. Lakoda is an undergraduate student working towards her BSc in Psychology, planning on completing her studies at UBC Okanagan. Lakoda's ultimate goal is to gain interdisciplinary knowledge and experience of ecological systems, so as to intertwine traditional indigenous knowledge of her heritage with the modern point of view provided through the scientific perspective.
Megan Roberts
Completed an MSc, Oct 2022
Megan was based at Dalhousie University under Erin Bertrand in the Biology Department and joined the Bhatia lab fall of 2019 to be co-supervised with Maya. Her MSc project used a targeted metaproteomic approach to examine the influence of glacial input on marine primary productivity in Canadian Arctic and is a part of a multidisciplinary project in collaboration with glaciologists and oceanographers. She received her BSc at Dalhousie University with a double major in Marine Biology and Chemistry in 2017 and spent her time away from science trekking across the country on a bike, taking care of tiny humans and teaching violin.
Hayley Drapeau
Completed an MSC., December 2023
Hayley joined the Bhatia Lab in 2020 to start a MSc project, co-supervised with Suzanne Tank (Biological Sciences, U. of Alberta) in association with the Canadian Mountain Network. Her research focused on biogeochemical cycling of carbon and microbial ecology in glacial ecosystems in the Canadian Rockies. Previously, Hayley completed her BSc in Biology at Saint Mary’s University in Nova Scotia.
Outside of the lab, she enjoys zero waste cooking, hiking and reading.
Maria Cavaco
Laboratory Technician, MSc.
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Maria joined the Bhatia Lab in 2018, soon after completing her MSc. degree at the University of Alberta, which focused on freshwater microbial community diversity in a High Arctic watershed located on Northern Ellesmere Island, NU, as a research technician. Her work involved developing microbial analysis pipelines & various instrument protocols, while maintaining the lab. She enjoys traveling, trekking, fieldwork, reading, knitting and birds (but specifically, chickens).
