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Kathryn L. Cottingham

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Kathryn L. Cottingham
Alma materDrew University (BS)
University of Wisconsin – Madison (PhD)
Scientific career
InstitutionsDartmouth College
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
ThesisPhytoplankton responses to whole-lake manipulations of nutrients and food webs (1996)

Kathryn Linn Cottingham is a Professor of Ecology, Evolution, Environment and Society in the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College. She is a Fellow of the Ecological Society of America and American Association for the Advancement of Science. From 2020 she will serve as editor-in-chief of the journal Ecology.

Early life and education

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Cottingham earned her bachelor's degree at Drew University in 1990.[1] Here she majored in mathematics and biology, and played lacrosse and field hockey.[2] Cottingham played Lacrosse in the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division III Tournament during her first season and was on the team that won the 1988 Middle Atlantic Conference championship.[3] She was the only NCAA Division III athlete to earn one of the Disney Scholar-Athlete Awards.[3] She moved to the University of Wisconsin–Madison for her graduate studies, where she earned her master's and doctoral degrees under the supervision of Steve Carpenter.[2] She was supported by an National Collegiate Athletic Association postgraduate fellowship.[3] Her PhD research in the Center for Limnology evaluated the effects of nutrients and the food web structure on freshwater plankton.[4][5] She was one of the first cohort of postdoctoral researchers at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, where she developed early warning indicators and ways to study community dynamics.[2]

Research and career

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Cottingham studies the dynamics of lake plankton communities and relationships between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. She joined the faculty at Dartmouth College in 1998. She has studied the reasons that cyanobacteria bloom occur, and the consequences of them blooming in low nutrient clear-water lakes. She has investigated ways to manage the growth of these blooms and mitigate the negative impacts of them on ecosystems.[6] Cottingham showed that cyanobacterial blooms create their own optimised environments, driving nitrogen and phosphorus cycling in otherwise low nutrient lakes.[7][8] She has started work with computer scientists to use big data and artificial intelligence to understand cyanobacteria across the East Coast.[9] Data will be collected using robotic boats, buoys and drones equipped with cameras.[9]

Cottingham also works on environmental health, in particular the occurrence of arsenic in food and drinking water. Her 2012 research on pregnant women's rice consumption and arsenic exposure was selected by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) as one of the most important papers of the year.[10][11] She identified that women who ate rice had considerably higher urinary arsenic concentrations than those who did not consume rice.[11][12] She went on to show that white wine, beer, Brussels sprouts and salmon significantly increased arsenic levels in humans.[13]

Academic service

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From 2017 to 2019 Cottingham served as a National Science Foundation Program Director in the Division of Environmental Biology.[14] She returned to Dartmouth College in 2019. Cottingham is involved with several public engagement projects, including acting as Vice Chair of the Science Advisory Boards of the Lake Sunapee Protective Association and Jefferson Project at Lake George.[2]

Awards and honours

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Selected publications

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  • Cottingham, Kathryn L. (1997). "Resilience and restoration of lakes". Conservation Ecology. 1: 2–3.
  • Cottingham, Kathryn L. (2000). "The relationship in lake communities between primary productivity and species richness". Ecology. 81 (10): 2662–2679. doi:10.1890/0012-9658(2000)081[2662:TRILCB]2.0.CO;2.
  • Cottingham, Kathryn L. (2001). "Biodiversity may regulate the temporal variability of ecological systems". Ecology Letters. 4: 72–85. doi:10.1046/j.1461-0248.2001.00189.x.

Cottingham is the Editor-in-Chief of Ecology.[17][18]

References

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  1. ^ "Kathryn L. Cottingham | Faculty Directory". faculty-directory.dartmouth.edu. 2 April 2013. Retrieved 2019-12-25.
  2. ^ a b c d "Kathy Cottingham | The Cottingham Lab at Dartmouth". sites.dartmouth.edu. Retrieved 2019-12-25.
  3. ^ a b c "Kathy Cottingham (2000) - Drew University Athletics Hall of Fame". Drew University Athletics. Retrieved 2019-12-25.
  4. ^ Cottingham, Kathryn L (1993). Effects of food web structure on the resilience and resistance of lake phosphorus cycles. [Place of publication not identified]: [publisher not identified].
  5. ^ Cottingham, Kathryn L (1996). Phytoplankton responss to whole-lake manipulations of nutrients and food webs (Thesis). 1996.
  6. ^ "Meet DEB: Daniel Gruner and Kathryn Cottingham". DEBrief. 2017-09-29. Retrieved 2019-12-25.
  7. ^ "Algae blooms create their own favorable conditions". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 2019-12-25.
  8. ^ "WKSU News: Cyanobacteria continues to thrive in Ohio lakes". WKSU. Retrieved 2019-12-25.
  9. ^ a b "Big data, artificial intelligence to support research on harmful blue-green algae". phys.org. Retrieved 2019-12-25.
  10. ^ Gilbert-Diamond, Diane; Cottingham, Kathryn L.; Gruber, Joann F.; Punshon, Tracy; Sayarath, Vicki; Gandolfi, A. Jay; Baker, Emily R.; Jackson, Brian P.; Folt, Carol L.; Karagas, Margaret R. (2011). "Rice consumption contributes to arsenic exposure in US women". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 108 (51). National Academy of Sciences: 20656–60. Bibcode:2011PNAS..10820656G. doi:10.1073/pnas.1109127108. OCLC 811397106. PMC 3251121. PMID 22143778.
  11. ^ a b "Environmental Factor - January 2013: 2012 papers of the year". factor.niehs.nih.gov. Archived from the original on 2020-10-19. Retrieved 2019-12-25.
  12. ^ Cottingham Kathryn K. (2012). "Bite of Arsenic, with Kathryn Cottingham". Podcasts: The Researcher's Perspective. 2012 (1): 8p following A189. doi:10.1289/ehp.trp050112. PMID 22696767.
  13. ^ "Why is there arsenic in wine anyway?". Fox News. 2016-11-25. Retrieved 2019-12-25.
  14. ^ "| NSF - National Science Foundation". www.nsf.gov. Retrieved 2019-12-25.
  15. ^ "ESA Fellows – The Ecological Society of America". Retrieved 2019-12-25.
  16. ^ "2019 Fellows". American Association for the Advancement of Science. Retrieved 2019-12-25.
  17. ^ Gentes, Zoe (June 3, 2019). "ESA Welcomes Kathryn Cottingham as Editor in Chief of Ecology – The Ecological Society of America". Retrieved 2019-12-25.
  18. ^ "Kathryn Cottingham Appointed Editor-in-Chief of the Journal Ecology". Women In Academia Report. 2019-08-28. Retrieved 2019-12-25.
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