SFS Fellows Program
The Fellows of the Society of Freshwater Science are selected based on sustained excellence in contributions to freshwater science research, policy, or management. These are the leaders, at national and international levels, of their areas of freshwater science.
2025 Fellows
Joseph Culp
Dr. Joseph Culp is a Scientist in Residence and Adjunct Professor at Wilfrid Laurier University (WLU) Waterloo, Ontario, and an Emeritus Research Scientist with Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC). He received a B.Sc. from the University of Oklahoma and completed M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Calgary, where he applied the River Continuum Concept to the Saskatchewan River system and examined the impacts of forest clearcutting on benthic communities of Carnation Creek, British Columbia. As a professor at University of Calgary, he investigated the role of benthic fish in affecting the behavior, distribution, and abundance of stream insects. Moving to ECCC in 1990, he was located at the National Hydrology Research Centre and the University of New Brunswick until retirement in 2020. While at ECCC he investigated multiple stressor impacts on aquatic systems, focusing on the combined effects of nutrients, sediments and chemical stressors on taxonomic and trait composition of stream benthos.
Eugènia Martí
Dr. Eugènia Martí is a full professor at the Centre d’Estudis Avançats de Blanes (CEAB, Blanes, Spain), an institute of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) devoted to the study of aquatic ecosystems. She has worked there since 1999 under different research positions. Prior to that, she completed her PhD in 1995 on the study of in-stream nutrient dynamics in Mediterranean streams at the University of Barcelona, with Dr. F. Sabater. She then served as a postdoctoral researcher in the Stream Lab of Drs. N. Grimm and S. Fisher at Arizona State University, and in the LEQUIA Lab of Dr. M. Poch at the University of Girona, Spain. For more than 30 years, her research has focused on the dynamics of nutrients (N and P) and organic matter in fluvial ecosystems and the environmental controls and biogeochemical mechanisms driving them. Research has been mostly done in Mediterranean streams draining both pristine and human-altered catchments. Her recent research focuses on urban streams receiving inputs from wastewater treatment plant effluents (WWTP). Since 2014, she is one of the leaders of the Urban River Lab (www.urbanriverlab.com), an experimental platform aimed at assessing stream responses to WWTP effluent inputs and finding nature-based solutions to reduce this impact.
Cathy Pringle
Dr. Catherine Pringle is a Distinguished Research Professor Emerita at the University of Georgia’s (UGA) Odum School of Ecology (OSE) where she specializes in the study of freshwater ecosystems and conservation ecology. Her research focuses on species-community-ecosystem linkages, effects of disturbance on freshwater ecosystems (particularly streams), and the role of hydrologic connectivity in shaping ecosystems within landscapes. She received a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, followed by post-doctoral positions at the University of California at Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara, and Cornell University. Dr. Pringle joined UGA in 1993 and served as the Chair of OSE’s Conservation Ecology &; Sustainable Development Graduate M.S. Program from 1993-2020. She served as past president of the Society for Freshwater Science, and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Amy Rosemond
Dr. Amy D. Rosemond is the UGA Foundation Professor in Ecology and Distinguished Research Professor at the University of Georgia. She is fortunate to have worked on collaborative projects to make the field of freshwater science more inclusive and on research projects to advance our knowledge of freshwater ecosystems. She recognizes the critical need for diverse perspectives, experiences, and approaches in addressing freshwater challenges and societal investments, such as via national/federal and state/regional agencies that make much of that work possible. Amy was elected as a Fellow of the Ecological Society of America in 2018 and received UGA’s Creative Research Medal in Science and Engineering that same year. She served as President of the Society for Freshwater Science (2019-2020), and helped to envision and currently leads the SFS Emerge Program in collaboration with the rest of the Emerge team.
David Walters
David M. Walters, PhD, is a Research Ecologist and Chief of the Ecology Branch at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Columbia Environmental Research Center. His research focuses on the effects of human stressors on the form, function, and structure of aquatic and riparian ecosystems with an emphasis on food web dynamics and contaminants. He began his career at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency National Exposure Research Laboratory in 2002 before joining the USGS in 2008. His publications have addressed the impacts of contaminants, land use and climate change, invasive species, and hydrologic alteration on aquatic and riparian organisms, and are geared toward furthering the conservation and restoration of these valued ecosystems. He received an M.S. and Ph.D. from the Odum School of Ecology at the University of Georgia.