Kathleen (Katie) H. Pine

New position and research project on the Salton Sea

I am pleased to announce that I began a new position (in addition to my current appointment as a project scientist in Informatics) as Academic Coordinator for the UC Irvine Salton Sea Initiative. The Salton Sea is a large inland saline lake in Southern California fed through agricultural runoff. It is losing volume and gaining in salinity, leading to complex health and habitat problems for the human and wildlife populations that surround it. Management of the problems has remained at a standstill for decades.

Part of my work with the initiative will entail connecting researchers doing work from all disciplinary backgrounds on the sea, its ecosystem, management, and impacts. I am also spearheading a collaborative project to do some true “infrastructuring”– creating information infrastructure that will support research, monitoring, and community knowledge production about the incredibly complex issues facing the sea and its management going forward. I am partnering with the CSU San Bernardino Water Resources Institute on this project and working closely with faculty and researchers at UC Irvine, as well as multiple governmental and community stakeholder organizations.