Maria Strack (She/Her)

Maria Strack does mind having soggy feet and loves spending the day in a wetland. She completed her BSc at McMaster University where she studied submergent plant communities in Great Lakes marshes for her undergraduate research project. She moved from canoes to mosses for her PhD, also completed at McMaster University. Her doctoral research explored the potential effects of climate change on peatland carbon storage and greenhouse gas exchange using a ecosystem water table drawdown experiment. She started her academic career at University of Calgary where she worked from 2007-2014. In 2014, she joined the Department of Geography and Environmental Management at University of Waterloo and is currently the Canada Research Chair in Wetland Climate Solutions.

• climate change

• ecological restoration

• wetland

• peatland

• methane

• carbon cycle

• natural climate solutions

Maria’s research investigates the interactions between ecology, hydrology, biogeochemistry and soil properties in wetland ecosystems. In particular, her research focuses on feedbacks between wetlands and climate by investigating controls on peatland greenhouse gas exchange in natural, disturbed and restored ecosystems. Maria collaborates on several peatland restoration projects across Canada involving restoration of sites used for horticultural peat extraction, former well-pads and roads related to oil extraction, and peatland construction in oil sands mining regions. Her interest in these projects is evaluating the conditions that help to return a carbon accumulation function post-restoration. She also investigates the potential impact of climate change on peatlands through plot to ecosystem scale manipulation of temperature and water table and process-based modelling and evaluating the subsequent changes in soil properties, plant community and greenhouse gas fluxes.

Maria is also particularly interested in peatland methane dynamics including both fluxes and subsurface storage. As part of this research she uses a variety of geophysical techniques to monitor gas accumulation and release while also investigating the physical soil properties and hydrochemical and microbiological conditions that are related to spatial patterns of gas accumulation.

• 2006, PhD, Hydrology, McMaster University, Canada

• 2002, BSc, Ecology, McMaster University, Canada

• 2025, Tier I Canada Research Chair

• 2022, IN-TECH Reclamation Award (Group), as member of Peatland Ecology Research Group, Canadian Land Reclamation Association (CLRA)

• 2022, Outstanding Performance Award, Faculty of Environment, University of Waterloo

• 2020, Member, College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists, Royal Society of Canada

• 2019, Outstanding Performance Award, Faculty of Environment, University of Waterloo

• 2019, Tier II Canada Research Chair (renewal)

• 2016, Outstanding Performance Award, Faculty of Environment, University of Waterloo

• 2014, Tier II Canada Research Chair

• 2025, Group Chair, Geoscience Evaluation Group, NSERC Discovery Grants

• 2023-2025, Associate Chair Graduate Studies, Department of Geography and Environmental Management, University of Waterloo

• Canadian Geophysical Union

• European Geophysical Union

• Society for Ecological Restoration

• International Peatland Society

• GEOG 294 - Approaches to Research in Physical Geography
  • Taught in 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025
• GEOG 304 - Carbon in the Biosphere
  • Taught in 2021, 2022

* Only courses taught in the past 5 years are displayed.