Stacey Sloan Blersch

• Stream and wetland restoration
• Hydrological and hydraulic engineering in streams

Stacey Sloan Blersch recently joined the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering to pursue a Ph.D. in environmental engineering and is broadly interested in ecosystem restoration. Ms. Blersch has a varied and accomplished background, having an educational background in engineering and environmental science as well as work experience in mechanical engineering, emergency contingency planning, watershed planning and project management.  After receiving her undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Notre Dame, where she conducted research on oil spill response technologies, she worked for a small environmental consulting firm in Washington, D.C., focusing on response measures to large catastrophic oil spills.

Witnessing the environmental impacts from marine oil spills spurred her interest in the field of ecosystem restoration, and she returned to school for an M.S. in Environmental Science and Policy from Johns Hopkins University. Following this, she worked as a watershed and restoration planner, first for the District of Columbia government and then for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Baltimore, where her efforts focused primarily on defining restoration criteria for highly disturbed urban watersheds. From developing regional partnerships with water suppliers and NGOs, to managing wetland and stream restoration projects, her experience in the field has led her to recognize the knowledge gaps in the principles of ecosystem restoration, especially as they relate to hydrological and hydraulic engineering in streams.  As a recipient of the ERIE IGERT traineeship, she hopes to apply her experiences in the Chesapeake Bay watershed to the environmental challenges in the Great Lakes region, particularly to researching the restoration of stream and wetland ecosystems.

• BS in Mechanical Engineering (Notre Dame, year)
• MS in Environmental Science and Policy (Johns Hopkins, year)

Blersch, S.S.(2009, May). A Conceptual Model for Stream Restoration in Western New York: A Developing Case Study in the Elton Creek Watershed. Poster presented at the 2009 AGU Joint Assembly, Toronto, ON.