Krista Capps studies land use and the impact on aging infrastructures.
Krista CappsShe can pinpoint the moment she became a stream ecologist.
I majored as an undergraduate in political science and biology, and thought I would become an environmental lawyer. Then I took a field course on Indian world religions, and a river trip on Ganges changed everything. I knew that I wanted to continue working with freshwater for the rest my life.
Capps, now an assistant professor at the Odum School of Ecology, has a joint appointment with the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory. She was intrigued by the variety of uses that the river supported, including spirituality and religion, as well as basic biological functions. She wanted to know how to balance all these competing needs.
It was obvious that different stakeholders were using river in different ways. This experience made her reflect on similar issues in the U.S. I realized that I needed more information about the perspectives of other people on the environment.
This realization has shaped her career since. After serving in the Peace Corps, she completed her doctorate and then held a postdoctoral role in sustainability science at the University of Maine. She joined the UGA faculty in 2015.
Capps and her group are studying how human activities impact freshwater ecosystems. There are active research programs in Athens, Atlanta and across the U.S., southern Mexico, and northern India. Her current research is focused on the impacts of aging water infrastructure on water quality, and changes in land use on stream and river communities.
Projects include a large collaborative investigation of five major U.S. cities, which compares how different types urban development affect water-quality. Similar questions are being asked in the Usumacinta River in southern Mexico. She is investigating the effects of urbanization, palm oil cultivation, and possible dam construction. Both studies were funded by grants from National Science Foundation.
Capps stated that Georgia is an ideal place to tackle these challenges.
There are many challenges in freshwater resource management. They can only be addressed fairly through interdisciplinary research, active collaboration with communities, and equitably by collaborating with communities. It is easy to find colleagues interested in working together to solve these difficult questions with research centers like the River Basin Center or Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems. The Odum School of Ecology is a long-standing epicenter for freshwater ecology research. SREL shares this long history. It is an incredible experience to work in places that you have read about for many years and had such a profound impact on your field of study.
Capps is passionately involved in teaching. Capps was a Lilly Teaching Fellow, Service-Learning Fellow, as well as a participant in the Active Learning Summer Institute in 2020.
Krista Kapps, Anuja Mital (doctoring scholar), Shou Chen (visiting scholar) and Denzell cross (student) collect samples in a stream at campus as part of a larger effort that studies the impact of urbanization on streams throughout Georgia. (Photo by Dorothy Kozlowski/UGA).
Ecology 1000, a course designed for non-science majors, is one of her favourite classes. Her goal is for ecology and environmental science to be relevant to students in Ecology 1000, which could be their last science class.
She said that I try to emphasize the connections between the environment and economic and social well-being. There are tangible ways in which the environment can impact human health and well being. It’s an exciting time to teach this class. It is one of the best parts about my job.
Capps is also involved in outreach activities through UGA, scientific societies, and other organizations.
She said that a lot of my service has been about trying to bring different perspectives to the table. Given the pressures that human populations are placing on freshwater systems, it is vital to have a variety of voices in decision-making to ensure equitable and sustainable resource management.
Since 2011, Capps has been involved in the Society for Freshwater Science Instars program, which aims to increase the recruitment and retentionof scholars from historically marginalized communities into freshwater science. She was also a mentor for Ecological Society of America’s Strategies for Ecology Education Diversity and Sustainability program. She was the founder of the Odum Schools Diversity Equity and Inclusion committee in 2016 and was recently elected to the board for Diversity Joint Venture for Careers in Conservation. This organization is dedicated to increasing diversity and representation in conservation organisations across the country.
Capps believes that all aspects of her career are intertwined and can be traced back at that day on the Ganges River.
She stated that conservation programs must be sensitive to the diverse needs of different groups of people in order to succeed in protecting ecosystem services for future generations.
