AGI Announces 2013-2014 William L. Fisher Congressional Geoscience Fellow

Alexandria, VA — Congratulations to Kristen Mitchell, the 2013-2014 William L. Fisher Congressional Geoscience Fellow for the American Geosciences Institute (AGI).

Mitchell graduated with her B.S. in Marine Chemistry from Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida in 2005. After graduation, Mitchell moved to Europe for a Fulbright Student Fellowship where she studied microbial sulfate reduction at the University of Southern Denmark. During the course of her Ph.D., Mitchell studied at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, Georgia Institute of Technology, and finally the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario. She successfully defended her Ph.D. on the marine biogeochemical cycling of selenium isotopes at Utrecht University in 2012.

Currently, Mitchell is a research associate in the Ecohydrology Research Group at the University of Waterloo. Her research focuses on assessing the utility of remote sensing to identify plastic debris in the Great Lakes and in oceans. Mitchell is looking forward to leaving the laboratory and working together with policy makers.

The William L. Fisher Congressional Geoscience Fellowship offers geoscientists the unique opportunity to spend 12 months in Washington, D.C. working as a staff member in the office of a member of Congress or on a congressional committee. Every year, the AGI fellow joins more than two dozen other scientists and engineers for an intensive orientation program on the legislative and executive branches, organized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which also guides the placement process and provides educational and collegial programs for the fellows throughout the year.