BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: CATHERINE M. PRINGLE
Odum School Ecology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602-2602
Telephone: (706) 542-4289; FAX (706) 542-3344; E-Mail: cpringle@uga.edu
Web Page: http://cpringle.myweb.uga.edu
Dr.
Pringle is a Distinguished Research Professor at the University of
Georgia's (UGA) Odum School of Ecology, where she specializes in
freshwater ecosystem studies and conservation ecology. She earned
her BS (1976), MS (1979) and Ph.D. (1986) from the University of
Michigan in Ann Arbor. She did postdoctoral research through the
University of California at Berkeley and Santa Barbara (1986-90), and
Cornell University (1991-92).
Pringle joined UGA's Institute of Ecology
(now the Odum School of Ecology) in 1993. She serves as Chair of
the Conservation Ecology Graduate Program Steering Committee. She received a Creative Research Medal
from UGA in 2000 in recognition of her innovative research
techniques. Her
research examines species-community-ecosystem linkages, with a focus on
effects of species loss on ecosystem structure and function. Other
research areas include landscape ecology, patch dynamics and hydrologic
connectivity. Changes in stream solute chemistry, which have emerged
from long-term data sets collected in lowland Costa Rica, have led to a
more recent focus on climate change effects on stream ecosystems and
cascading ecological effects.
Research contributions include 165
publications, with 110 refereed journals, over 50 book chapters and
symposium proceedings and 3 co-edited books.
Funding has been provided by over 50 grants, primarily from the
National Science Foundation (NSF) and other federal agencies such as
the US-EPA, USDA Forest Service, and the Natural Resources Conservation
Service - but also including the Nature Conservancy, the
Conservation Food and Health Foundation and the National Geographic
Society. Pringle directs a long-term (1985-present) tropical
program in environmental biology in Costa Rica (NSF-LTREB) and is also
a co-PI and a member of the Advisory/Executive Committees for two
NSF-funded long term ecological research (LTER) Projects in North
Carolina (Coweeta) and Puerto Rico (Luquillo). She is a Co-PI in
the TADS (Tropical Amphibian Declines) Project in Panama, which focuses
on the response of tropical stream ecosystems to frog (larval anuran)
extirpation. She is also a Co-PI in a recent large collaborative
NSF-FIBR (Frontiers in Integrative Biological Research) Project in
Trinidad which is examining how ecological and evolutionary processes
interact in nature. While most of Pringle's research has been in
the Caribbean, she and her graduate students have conducted ecological
studies in Madagascar and Kosrae, Micronesia. Long-term research
projects in Costa Rica and Puerto Rico have been effective in linking
scientific research with resource management and environmental outreach.
Pringle has served on advisory panels for
the National Academy of Sciences, NSF (Ecosystem Studies and Ecology),
and the Organization for Tropical Studies. She is currently Chair of
the Awards Committee of the Ecological Society of America (ESA).
She served as a past-President of the North American Benthological
Society (2002-03); Chair of the ESA’s Sustainable Biosphere
Initiative Steering Committee (2001-04); member of the National Center
for Ecological Synthesis (NCEAS) Science Advisory Board (2004-07);
member of the DIVERSITAS International Task Force on Freshwater
Biodiversity (2003); and an elected representative for the
International Society of Limnology for three consecutive terms
(2001-10).
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