Background, Research Interests, and Current Projects:
Blake received her B.S. in Biological Sciences (emphasis Ecology and Evolution) from UC Davis. Since graduating in 2001, she has worked on a variety of field studies in mountain to desert to tropical locations, including the Sierra Nevada and Rockies, Florida, Madagascar, and the Owens Valley in eastern California. After spending two rewarding years working for the Mountain Studies Institute, a non-profit research organization in southwest Colorado, Blake finds herself living at the edge of the Great Basin, pursuing a Masters degree at UNR.
For her thesis, Blake will investigate the relationships between riparian vegetation communities and geomorphic process zones (stream regions defined by morphology, sediment characteristics, hydrology, and behavior). This work is part of an ongoing study of watershed sensitivity in the central Great Basin. The results will provide detailed information on how stream systems have responded to past disturbance, and how they might respond in the future. Field sites are perennial basins of the Toiyabe Mountain Range in central Nevada. Blake's mentors include Jeanne Chambers, USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station; Peter Weisberg, UNR, Dept. of Natural Resource and Environmental Sciences; and Jerry Miller, Dept. of Geosciences, Western Carolina University.
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