Unsurprisingly, starting up a lab as a new PI takes a lot of time and there are a lot of things that need to get done. Also unsurprisingly, keeping your lab webpage updated is not one of the top priorities. There have been a lot of things happening in the Reisinger Lab over the past year, including the addition of another graduate student, a #Wundergrad, and a new technician (check out the Our Team page for updates). We also have multiple projects going on looking at nutrient dynamics in urban soils, stormwater ponds, and urban streams. We added the Cone Park Compost subpage to our Research section, and we are hoping to provide regular updates on this cool partnership with local government to provide updates on the project and general information on alternative landscape management practices in general. Check it out (there's not much there yet...).

There will be a lot more to update on in the coming months as Reisinger Lab grad students present results from their projects at local and national/international meetings, and as more projects start coming online. Also, now that I'm doing this updating I'm realizing it doesn't take me all that much time...hopefully this will become a more regular things for me...

I'm excited to announce that we have a bunch of new folks to welcome to the team. Steve Hohman and Emily Taylor will be joining the lab as graduate students in August. They will be working on water quality in stormwater ponds and urban streams. Check out the Our Team page to learn more about their background and interests. In addition, Morgan Gallagher will be joining the lab as a summer undergraduate researcher through the UF SURF program this summer. She will be working on pharmaceutical impacts on ecosystem functions from urban stream sediments. Finally, a lab technician will be joining the team in June to help with field work, get the lab up and running, and general keep me on task...

I'm really excited for everyone to get down to Gainesville and let the sciencing commence!

​- AJ

Hi everyone!

As you probably know, I recently started my position in the Soil and Water Sciences Department at the University of Florida. The department regularly highlights new faculty on their main webpage through an interview process. In the interview I talk about my path to get me to UF, my vision for both research and extension programs, and issues I foresee with urban soil and water quality moving forward. Check out the interview here.

Almost all of my research to this point has been highly collaborative. Working with really smart, energetic, fun colleagues is one of my favorite parts of my job. For my PhD I spent three summers in the field with PI's from four institutions (including my PhD advisor) along with multiple graduate students and undergraduates. My post-doctoral work again, was highly collaborative, as there were multiple institutions and many disciplines involved in our work trying to understand the effects of stream restoration on environmental quality, as well as socioeconomic dynamics in Baltimore, MD. Not only is it fun to collaborate with people, you also learn new skills, can tackle bigger questions, and typically end up being much more productive than you would be on your own. The NY Times wrote a great article on what constitutes an effective team after studying team dynamics at Google, and there are a lot of great tips in there. 

Ultimately, though, the success of a team is judged on its productivity. Here at the University of Florida, I'm lucky to have joined a cohort focused on Sustainable Human and Ecological Development (SHED). I'm hoping that my collaborative experiences in the past will lead to success moving forward.

Recently, I was lucky enough to be asked to join an already highly productive team to add some of my skills for a recent paper focused on nitrogen assimilation in headwater streams. The team that I joined has worked together for many years and have done some great work, and I'm happy that our paper was just recently published online in Ecological Monographs.

The Reisinger Lab was officially formed in the Soil and Water Sciences Department of the University of Florida in August of 2017. Over the past month+ we've been getting everything set up to start our work studying urban soil and water quality, while providing our knowledge to various groups throughout the state. In our group, we focus on ecosystem functions within urban environments, how these functions respond to various pollutants, and how the functions may reduce further pollution occurring 'downstream'. We are primarily an extension and research group, so you'll tend to find AJ out in the field either collecting samples or interacting with local stakeholders across a range of issues. We'll update these blog as relevant news starts filtering in, but in the meantime, make sure you check out the other sections of our webpage where you'll find information about our team, and our research and extension programs. If you have any questions, feel free to contact AJ.

​Thanks for stopping by!