What is your current occupation?

I’m the Water Quality Manager at the Farmington River Watershed Association, a nonprofit working on advocacy, research, and education in the Farmington River Watershed in Massachusetts and Connecticut. My primary roles are research, data analysis, QA/QC, and report writing. 

Please tell us a little bit about yourself. 

I grew up along Long Island Sound and now live in Harwinton, Connecticut. I received my bachelor’s degree in biology with a concentration in environmental science and a minor in chemistry from Central Connecticut State University. In my free time I enjoy hiking with my dog, an energetic German Shorthaired Pointer named Han Solo.

What is your area of expertise?

My area of expertise, and my favorite work to do, is actually continuous monitoring via data loggers, for which we only use the HOBO brand.

What is your primary motivation for doing the work that you do?

I’m inspired by the beauty and diversity of our watershed. My motivation comes from both working for something that doesn’t have its own voice, and in discovering and analyzing interesting data.

What would you say is your greatest accomplishment? 

At this point in time, my greatest accomplishment is increasing our logger sites from 13 to 35 within two years, allowing us to add 200,000 more data points a year, along with incorporating more QA/QC procedures to ensure and prove that the data we collect is reliable.

What do you strive to achieve in the future?

I strive to see a project come to fruition based off data I have collected. We recently identified high chloride levels in some tributaries, and I would love to see one location’s chloride pollution reduced through advocacy or a project.

Have you ever thought about the name HOBO and what it might mean? 

My mentor used to joke that the loggers were named HOBOs due to the fact that they typically live under a bridge. 

What HOBO monitoring products do you use on a regular basis?

We use HOBO U22 Water Temperature Pro v2 loggers for long-term trends and to evaluate if waterbodies are suitable for sensitive species, HOBO U24 Conductivity loggers for monitoring chloride pollution-prone locations for conductivity spikes in relation to chloride and long-term trends, HOBO U20 Water Level loggers for projects upstream or downstream of culverts and dams, and HOBO U26 Dissolved Oxygen loggers for research on ponds and lakes where dissolved oxygen can be low.

Please describe a specific project of yours where HOBO data loggers played a key role.

Last year I received a grant to use U24 conductivity loggers in locations where chloride was identified to be high, or higher at one point in time. The loggers were programmed to record conductivity every hour and supported by staff monitoring chloride with a multiparameter meter. I then used meter conductivity and chloride data to create site-specific linear equations to approximately convert conductivity to chloride. Thanks to this research we identified one location in which chloride was “toxic” for a whole month and another where chloride was higher than expected.

What HOBO features do you consider most important?

The ability to program and deploy a logger to do the work for us is most important. We collect a lot of data thanks to the loggers deployed in our watershed and couldn’t do it without them.

Do you think accurate data can help you build a better tomorrow?

Absolutely. All of our data is shared with the EPA and relevant state departments for decision-making, and for our own use in determining and supporting future projects. It’s important to know that the data we are collecting and providing is accurate.