Katrina Bennett to assume Q5 co-leadership responsibilities

NGEE Arctic is always looking to engage project participants in new and exciting opportunities, not only in research, but leadership as well. Therefore, periodically we welcome new scientists to join our NGEE Arctic Leadership Team and serve in new ways. After consultation with LANL’s Cathy Wilson and discussions among others on the Leadership Team, we are pleased to announce that Katrina Bennett has accepted an expanded role in co-leading the permafrost hydrology Science Question 5 (Q5). She will work with Cathy as they transition LANL roles and responsibilities and as she collaborates with Bob Bolton, UAF co-lead for Q5. Many of you know Katrina as the LANL lead on snow observation and modeling work for NGEE Arctic, and more recently through her coordinating role of the upcoming NGEE Ecosystem Types workshop. Katrina brings significant project and personnel management experience to this role, as well as synergistic relationships with other national (NOAA AK) and international (WMO Cryosphere WG) entities that will benefit the NGEE Arctic project as a whole. Katrina received her PhD in Hydrology from University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) in 2014, after working as a staff hydrologist and team leader at the Pacific Climate Impact Consortium (PCIC) in Victoria, BC for 4 years. Many of her publications feature her regional scale modeling expertise in applications across the North American continent – from the Colorado River basin to the major river basins of Interior Alaska and Northern Canada. During her time at UAF and PCIC, she developed a strong network of Arctic collaborators who are leaders in the permafrost snow and hydrology community. She also brings connections to two highly synergistic projects; as LANL PI on the new NOAA Alaska Snow Remote Sensing project, and as task lead on the new DOE Arctic coastal InteRFACE project. Katrina also serves as Team Leader of Applied Terrestrial, Energy, and Atmospheric Modeling (ATEAM), in LANL's Earth and Environmental Sciences Division. Please note that Cathy will continue in her role as LANL Institutional Representative and in her active role in science planning and oversight.