Lukas Lamb-Wotton is a PhD candidate at Florida International University who has been studying the impacts of sea-level rise and saltwater intrusion on coastal Everglades sawgrass peat marshes since 2017.
Growing up in Maine, where mountains are tall and rivers flow in abundance, he became inspired by landscapes. This inspiration grew during his time as an undergraduate at the University of Maine, where he studied Biology but concentrated in Ecology, receiving his B.S degree in 2016. He was fortunate to get involved with research labs early on, getting a range of experience spanning fish ecology, wetland ecology, and paleoecology. After spending a summer studying the forested wetlands of Maine, he became enthralled by how dynamic these environments could be relative to the surrounding landscape. Ultimately, this passion brought him to the south Florida Everglades where has been studying wetlands ever since.
During his PhD efforts, Lukas has not only conducted research in some of the most remote locations of Everglades National Park, but he has been an advocate for Everglades restoration, and has sought to communicate the meaning of his science to others every chance he gets. From public seminars co-hosted with local radio stations, to briefing Congressional representatives, to organizing workshops for his fellow graduate students on how to best communicate their science, he has been an active member of the Everglades research community. He is striving to have a career conducting ecological research, where he uses science to tackle environmental conundrums, in order to better understand how the changes that are currently occurring across the planet will affect our coastal environments.
You can follow along his journey on Instagram: @Luke_LambWotton