For most of her career, Dr. Conklin, has focused on groundwater-surface water interactions, determining timescales of reactions that occur at this interface as well as groundwater contributions to stream flow using natural tracers. She is lead on both a science project to understand water and nutrient budgets in montane meadows and the education and outreach efforts.
Prof. Conklin's scientific record of research, leadership in large projects, and educational-outreach ethic led to UC Water's structure and goals. She continues to guide UC Water as the UC Merced campus lead, a proponent of cooperative surface-groundwater modeling, and advisor to post-docs and students.
Learn more about Conklin's work on water information systems in Water in the Balance.
Dr. Martha Conklin, Professor of Engineering and member of the Environmental Systems Graduate Group, joined UC Merced in 2003 as one of the Founding Faculty. Dr. Conklin is Co-PI of the National Science Foundation's Sierra Nevada Critical Zone Observatory located at the Kings River Experimental Watershed. As a member of the Sierra Nevada Research Institute, Dr. Conklin studies water quality, water movement and the interaction of surface water and groundwater in natural settings. Dr. Conklin has conducted extensive research in the field of organic chemical distribution in soil and groundwater and chemical processes in snow. She has published numerous papers, as well as served on a National Research Council committee and as an associate editor of Water Resources Research (WRR).
Dr. Conklin has nearly ten years experience working with Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment, a science education program funded by NSF and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) that promotes worldwide collaboration of primary and secondary students and teachers with scientists in environmental research. She is currently on the board for the Yosemite Institute, a non-profit educational institute that brings 13,000 California 6-12 grade students to Yosemite National Park. Dr. Conklin earned a B.A. from Mount Holyoke College and an M.S. and Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology.