Presenter: Robin Kodner
Snow Algae: Small Organisms, Big Impact
How is Climate Change affecting life within the snow? Dr. Robin Kodner of Western Washington University will be presenting research on snow algae communities across the cascades and how citizen scientists can get involved.
About Robin:
Assistant Professor, Biology Department, WWU
Robin Kodner has been an assistant professor of Biology at Western Washington University since 2012. She earned her PhD at Harvard University in the Department of Organismal and Evolutionary Biology, followed by a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Washington Friday Harbor Labs and School of Oceanography. Robin started her research career studying algal evolution over geologic time and moved to studying modern marine algal communities so that we could learn how they are responding to climate change. Her passion for being in the mountains has led Robin to expand her marine-based research into the mountains, applying the environmental genomic techniques to study snow algae communities. She is using the snow microbiome as a model to understand how communities evolve in response to climate change. In addition to her work, Robin has been an outdoor educator for over 15 years in the mountains and on sailboats. She uses both the ocean and mountain environments as platforms for teaching basic sciences.
