Class of 2024: Abigail Lewis loves lakes — and the role they play in climate resilience

Name: Abigail Lewis

College: College of Science

Degree: Ph.D. in biological sciences

Dissertation: Oxygen dynamics in the bottom-waters of widespread lakes: understanding the past to predict future change

Hometown: Waukesha, Wisconsin

Plans after graduation: Smithsonian Climate Change Fellowship focusing on forecasting methane emissions from coastal wetlands nationwide to inform climate resilience.

Favorite Hokie memory:
Happy hours and lunch at the Duck Pond. “I loved walking out and seeing families sitting there and students walking around,” Lewis said. “I think that kind of speaks to the value of freshwater ecosystems.”

Lake life

Lewis’ doctoral research focuses on predicting future water quality in lakes. With support from a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and the ICTAS Doctoral Scholarship, she has spent the past five years investigating aquatic biogeochemistry carbon cycling and developed conceptual and methodological frameworks for predicting future ecosystem states — focusing on lakes.

Lewis shared some of her parting insights:

Why are you interested in lakes?

Lakes are important for at least three reasons.

1. We all depend on freshwater resources to survive. Spending time at a lake is lovely for recreation, and lake tourism is huge economic driver.
2. Lakes are increasingly recognized as hotspots in the global carbon cycle. While lakes bury a lot of carbon in their sediment, offsetting the global carbon cycling processes that contributes to climate change, they also emit greenhouse gases. But, due to factors like changes in land use and climate change, the balance between those two processes is in flux.
3. Lakes are always changing. They're very dynamic ecosystems. Lake surface water temperatures increase faster than in rivers or oceans, and even faster than air temperatures as they respond to climate change and human impacts around the lake.

Those are all the science-y reasons, but I also grew up in Waukesha, surrounded by lakes. Before I had any of that fancy vocabulary to talk about carbon cycling, I think I had an innate appreciation for the value of these ecosystems.

Why did you choose Virginia Tech?

I came here because I was really excited about the work that my advisor, Cayelan Carey, and her group are doing. The research is unique in part because it's collaborative both inside and outside the lab. This group is motivated to translate our work across the science-society interface. Finally, there’s something intangible and unique about the graduate program in biology here at Virginia Tech: Graduate students are allowed to be human. We don’t work in isolation, and work-life balance is valued. That’s been such a huge part of what’s made pursuing a Ph.D. here enjoyable over the past five years. Plus, the dance parties.

What are you working towards?

I’m interested in building tools that can predict future environmental changes resulting from human impacts on the planet.

Climate change is one of the biggest issues that people are facing around the world today. Not only is it an ecological issue, but it's also a social, cultural, and political issue. It would be amazing if I could solve that problem myself, but I can't. The specific area that I've carved out to make a difference in these connected crises is here in aquatic sciences, where I feel like I have the capacity to help develop forecasts that could impact freshwater management.

Lewis additional awards and scholarships include the Virginia Tech Noel Krieg Graduate Fellowship, the Virginia Tech College of Science Roundtable Make-a-Difference Award, the Trailblazing Student Award from the Ecological Society of America, and the Mary and George Schaeffer Stream Team Excellence Award.