WKU News & Events

May 30, 2002

WKU Geoscience Graduate Student
Awarded Fellowship

Bowling Green, Ky. - A Western Kentucky University graduate student has been awarded the 2002 Cave Research Foundation Karst Research Fellowship.

Pat Kambesis of Chicago received the fellowship for her master's thesis proposal "A Systems Approach to the Understanding of Agricultural Contaminant Sources and Transport Within a Karst Groundwater Basin."

She will use state of-the-art methods of water sampling and biogeochemical analysis, along with Geographic Information Systems computer mapping technology, to quantify relationships between agricultural land use and karst groundwater quality in the Coldwater Creek area of northeast Iowa.

"This project represents a fine cooperative effort between WKU's Center for Water Resource Studies, Hoffman Environmental Research Institute and Biotechnology Center along with the Cave Research Foundation, the University of Iowa and the Illinois Geological Survey," said her adviser Chris Groves, director of the Hoffman Institute.

"Programs like this provide outstanding opportunities for our students to gain high-level professional experience," Groves said.

The $3,500 award, along with funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, will help make it possible to develop new methods for differentiating sources of bacteria, nitrogen and pesticide contamination in karst drinking water sources. This information, in turn, will help in the development of land use practices that balance competing environmental, economic and cultural needs in drinking water source areas with the end result of improving human health and safety.

Before coming to WKU's Hoffman Institute for graduate school, Kambesis had developed an international reputation as a cave explorer, surveyor and cartographer, and had won national awards for this work.

She has been president of the Cave Research Foundation for five years and is a co-author of the recently published book "Deep Secrets," about the early exploration of New Mexico's Lechugilla Cave. Kambesis has participated in cave exploration expeditions in Greece, Mexico, China, Puerto Rico and others.

Kambesis also serves as a research mentor to Hoffman Institute undergraduate students. This summer she will teach a course in cave surveying methods at Mammoth Cave through the Center for Cave and Karst Studies' Summer Karst Studies Program.

"Working with graduate students of this caliber is an integral part of our continuing success with federal water quality grant programs," said Ritchie Taylor, director of the Center for Water Resource Studies.

For more information, contact Chris Groves at (270) 745-5974. More WKU news is available on the World Wide Web at www.wku.edu. If you'd like to receive WKU news via e-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu.