Julia Smeltzer

Julia Smeltzer is a master's student in the Marine Estuarine Environmental Science program at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. She’s working with Dr. Lora Harris at Chesapeake Biological Laboratory on a project incorporating land use and water quality data to recommend restoration strategies that help improve water quality in Calvert County. 

Julia received her undergraduate degree at Haverford College, where she double majored in Biology and Environmental Science. There she worked on a project investigating the impact of global change factors on carbon cycling in tidal salt marshes and wrote a thesis on the impact of global change factors on phenotypic traits of Phragmites australis and the associated eco-evolutionary implications. After graduating from Haverford, Julia spent a summer at the Schoodic Institute in Acadia National Park as part of the Scientist in Parks program. As part of this program, she worked on projects focused on soft-sediment biodiversity in the intertidal zone and flowering time of eelgrass. She also spent a year working with The Nature Conservancy in Maryland as part of the Chesapeake Conservation and Climate Corps program looking at the effects of a prescribed burn on species composition in a tidal, brackish marsh in Dorchester County, Maryland. 

Julia has always been interested in the relationships between coastal ecosystems and the communities that surround them. She wants to do work that connects restoring/protecting coastal ecosystems with research so we can better understand the impact humans are having on the ecosystem services they provide but also how to keep these ecosystems healthy for the people that rely on them.