Hayley Kwasniewski

Bio

I am a PhD candidate in the Environmental Studies Department at the University of Colorado Boulder. After researching biochemical and cellular development of cancer, I began following an interest in the environmental fields. Before returning to academia, I worked at the interface of grassroots movements, climate resilience, and policy. From this experience, I gained a deep appreciation for nonhuman species and what they could tell us about ecosystem health, human impacts, and climate change. During my M.S. in environmental science and policy at Johns Hopkins University, I studied the relationships between environmental injustice and pollinator populations in Denver, CO. My unique set of experiences now provides me with the foundation necessary to answer questions about the Southern Ocean. I am excited to apply my chemistry, conservation, and policy knowledge to Antarctic toothfish research. My dissertation focuses on how this neutrally buoyant fish utilizes features like the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, Antarctic Slope Current, and gyres. Chemical analysis conducted on their otoliths (calcium carbonate ear stones with annual deposition layers similar to tree trunk rings) provide the fish’s locations throughout its lifetime, therefore, showing movement. Since Antarctic toothfish at least in part depend on physical oceanography for migration, this project will utilize the individual fish’s locations across time as a proxy for oceanic water transport.

Research Interests

Climate change and human impacts on the Antarctic circumpolar oceans. 

Education

• 2024 Certificate, Data Analysis with R, Duke University
• 2023 M.S., Environmental Policy and Science, Johns Hopkins University
• 2019 B.A., Biochemistry, Minors: Gender Studies, Geological Sciences, Indiana University

Faculty Advisor

Dr. Cassandra Brooks