McKenzie Kuhn

Co-President

McKenzie Kuhn is a PhD student in the Catchment and Wetlands Sciences group under the advisement of David Olefeldt. She is interested in understanding the impacts of climate warming on permafrost thaw and greenhouse gas emissions from lakes across the circumpolar region. She first developed a passion for the Arctic during a summer research position in northeast Siberia with the Polaris Project. Since this time, she has conducted research in Alaska, Greenland, and eastern Canada (Baffin Island). Before moving to Edmonton, she received a Fulbright Scholarship to conduct research in Northern Sweden with the Climate Impacts Research Center in Abisko.  When she isn’t getting overly excited about finding methane bubbles trapped in lake ice, she enjoys hiking, traveling, and coaching youth basketball.

Erin Macdonald

Co-President

Erin has completed her Masters student in Dr. Suzanne Tank's lab in Biological Sciences - Ecology, at the University of Alberta. She completed her B.Sc. at the University of Waterloo in Environmental Science - Ecology (coop), where she was took an Arctic Ecology class in her final semester and was captivated by the circumpolar world. For her Honours thesis with Dr. Roland Hall, she investigated ecological changes and anthropogenic pollution to a lake in northern Alberta. Following graduation, she joined Dr. Maria Strack's peatlands and greenhouse gas laboratory where she investigated the rates of decomposition in restored peatlands across Canada. Shortly after, she joined the Tank lab as a field assistant for the summer in the Canadian Arctic, in preparation before beginning her M.Sc. Her current project will investigate carbon composition and biodegradability in permafrost, and asses impacts of permafrost thaw to streams and the microbial communities in the Peel Plateau, NT. When she's not reading about science, she enjoys reading fictional mysteries, poetry, hiking, playing hockey, yoga, art and music. ​

Karling Roberts

Social Media Coordinator

Karling is a PhD student in the Fisheries and Aquatic Conservation group led by Mark Poesch at the University of Alberta. She studies fish community and food web structure and dynamics in human-constructed lakes in the oil sands region of Alberta. Her goal is to improve fisheries habitat offsetting practices in Canada. Before heading north with her research, Karling researched temperate recreational fisheries in Wisconsin and Michigan for her honours thesis and fish biodiversity in tropical reservoirs in Panama for an internship with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Karling completed her Bachelor of Science in Environment and Biology at McGill University in Montreal. When she is not on the water catching fish or in the lab studying their tissues, she enjoys rock climbing, reading, hiking and travelling.

Sofia Karabastos

VP Finance

Sofia is a M.Sc. student in Ecology studying mountain sheep in Albertan and NWT mountain ranges. In the past, she's worked/participated in research on black-capped chickadees, shorebirds, snakes and various subalpine plants, with her playbox extending from the bogs in Ontario to the French Alps. She's inspired by landscape management regimes worldwide and hopes to work with politicians and stakeholders to help develop these protocols in the future, in a public or research setting. She's currently also involved as an executive with the university's Circumpolar Students Association, and enjoys partaking in the university's clubs, events and talks after a day's work.

Natasha Klappstein

General Executive Member

Natasha is in her last year of a BSc in Biological Sciences and is most interested in mammal and bird ecology, particularly in boreal and tundra ecosystems.  She is a wildlife enthusiast with a soft spot for bears and has been involved in research projects with grizzlies, black bears, trout, ungulates, and wolves. She is currently completing her undergraduate thesis on Western Hudson Bay polar bear movement ecology with Dr. Andrew Derocher, and a project with Dr. Kimberley Mathot examining peregrine falcon provisioning behaviour in Nunuvat. This is her first year as an executive member of the CSA, and is also the secretary for the University of Alberta Chapter of the Wildlife Society. In her free time, she is an avid hiker and nature enthusiast, and loves to spend as much time as possible in the backcountry of the Canadian Rockies. 

Alireza Saidi-Mehrabad

General Executive Member

Alireza is a Ph.D. student in microbiology and biotechnology program, under the supervision of Dr. Brian Lanoil at the University of Alberta. He completed his M.Sc. at the University of Calgary in environmental microbiology under the advisement of Professor Peter Dunfield. In collaboration with major research organizations, such as Genome Alberta, Genome Canada and Hydrocarbon Metagenomics Project, he studied and characterized the methane-oxidizing bacteria responsible for mitigating methane gas emitted from oil sands tailings ponds in Fort McMurray Alberta. He also performed a short research on bacterial attachment mechanisms to host cells at the University of Toronto in Mauricio Terebiznik’s lab. His current research is mainly focused on understanding the effect of climate change on the microbes preserved in the Arctic and Subarctic permafrost. He investigates the preserved fingerprints of past climate changes since the ice age in permafrost by tracing taxonomic and key metabolic changes in the viable portion of the microbial communities, which might enable us to reconstruct the past, assess the present and predict the future of these microorganisms and the key direct and indirect parameters that might cause them to rapidly respond to climate change as a consequence of increased temperatures. Alireza is a big fan of video games, music, comic books, board games, photography and adventure in life.  

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