Profile
Kristen Hart
Doctoral Student, Ecology
After a successful undergraduate research experience at a Boston College field station in Cape Cod, Kristen Hart sought the opportunity to combine her love of the coastal and marine environment with a program that would prepare her to collect and analyze ecological data for marine species. As a Master’s in Environmental Management student, Kristen got involved with the Presidential Management Internship (now the Presidential Management Fellowship) program. Through the interview phase of the program, she met a representative from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and received the chance to continue graduate school in a Ph.D. program with the support of USGS. Duke’s graduate program in Ecology at the Marine Lab in Beaufort provided all the necessary ingredients for her aspirations. Kristen confides, “I live in a very beautiful, special place. One of my study sites is just out my back door, the graduate student community here at the lab is incredibly tight-knit, and I’m able to focus on my research and not have too many distractions (aside from kayaking, swimming, running, etc.). I also work with crab fishers who live in this community, and I have learned so much from them about the water and about life in general. It’s actually hard to put the whole experience into words. It’s more of a feeling—this place is my home, and I consider the people here my family.”
At both the Marine Lab and other sites across the nation, Kristen has built an impressive network of mentors and collaborators to shape her professional development. In addition to her major advisor, Duke Marine Lab faculty member Dr. Larry Crowder, Hart networks nationwide with several academic and government scientists. Rounding out her professional family, she calls upon the front-lines expertise of local blue crab fishers who live near Beaufort and an extraordinary boat captain from the Florida Integrated Science Center.
While still figuring out in what form she will ultimately embody her career goals—academic life and research careers being highly desirable options—Kristen finds in her Duke experience all the resources needed to enter her field as an effective and influential professional. She has already garnered a formidable research dossier that includes a long list of presentation credits, co-investigator status on research grants totaling over $400,000, a manuscript and book chapter under review, and a string of publications waiting in the wings. When considering her ‘extended family’ on the main Duke campus, she notes that Career Services (in particular Karen Kirchoff) has been “a fantastic resource for everything from getting a resume together, to scheduling interviews at the Duke-Yale fair, to alerting us to funding and fellowship opportunities.” Professional development programs administered from the main campus also augment her Marine Lab opportunities. The Graduate School “has made it possible for me to participate in the Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) program,” Kristen recalls. “With the help of Information Technology folks, we’ve arranged for the PFF discussions and seminars to be video-linked to me here at the Marine Lab, and I go up for site visits to other institutions when I can spare a day of travel.” Graduate School and departmental conference travel funds create further opportunities to connect to the professional community with presentation of her research results.
Kristen’s specific research goal has been to define the full extent of populations of Diamondback terrapins (Malaclemys terrapin) throughout their Atlantic and Gulf coastal range and to determine the basic parameters of terrapin populations in Florida and North Carolina, her specific regions of concentration. Her studies examine population dynamics, population genetics, home range, habitat use, and seasonal movement of this brackish water turtle. To date, Kristen has calculated the first survival rates for adult mangrove terrapins and worked with Dr. Tim King to document the presence of six regional metapopulations within the species’ range (from Massachusetts to Texas). She has designed two studies with commercial crabbers to understand the causes of terrapin bycatch in crab pots in North Carolina. “In each study, we tested the ability of various bycatch reduction devices (BRDs) to reduce catch rates of turtles but not that of valuable blue crabs,” Kristen explains. “Thanks to funding from the North Carolina Sea Grant’s Fishery Resource Grant program, we performed the studies together over five commercial fishing seasons and shed light on an important turtle mortality source and possible mitigation strategies.” It is evident that through her graduate experience, Kristen already functions as the best sort of environmental professional, one who transforms research knowledge into useful information for parties involved in making decisions that affect local ecosystems.
Larry Crowder
Stephen Toth Professor of Marine Biology
Kristen is unique among my previous students in the breadth of issues she attacked. She conducted fieldwork using telemetry and mark-recapture on terrapins in North Carolina salt marshes and in mangrove habitat in the Florida Everglades. She fished experimental crab pots with commercial crabbers in North Carolina, which led to the first test of bycatch reduction devices to protect terrapins in any commercial fishery. She collected blood samples from terrapins throughout their geographic range and conducted DNA microsatellite analysis on terrapins from Massachusetts to Texas. This work has totally redefined the population structure of terrapins and their biogeography. Some of the genetically distinct populations are small in numbers and probably merit additional protection. She is also in the position to test samples from live turtles that make their way into growing markets to determine where they were taken.
Kristen Hart has endured long hours in the field, in the laboratory, and at the computer to do an amazing dissertation. She has done all of this with extraordinary passion, energy, and endurance only seen in marathoners (which she has also run). Kristen is comfortable in the field at all hours with commercial fishermen, in the Everglades making blood sacrifices to hungry insects, and in critical scientific meetings making presentations. Her interest in her work is infectious, and she already has made substantial contributions toward understanding and sustaining diamondback terrapins.
(This profile originally appeared in the Spring 2005 issue of The GRIND.)