Research Interests
Alex completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Waterloo, specializing in Ecology and Environmental Biology. During her undergraduate studies, she joined the Servos Lab where she completed an honours thesis examining the effects of municipal wastewater effluent on the spawning behaviour of male rainbow darters (Etheostoma caeruleum).
Her MSc research expanded on this work by investigating the effects of municipal wastewater effluent on rainbow darter growth rates across the Grand River watershed. The project took advantage of major upgrades to several wastewater treatment plants within the watershed, including substantial improvements at the Kitchener WWTP, to examine how changes in effluent quality influenced fish growth and overall condition in exposed populations.
A major component of her research involved developing and validating methods to accurately age rainbow darter using sagittal otoliths. This work established aging techniques for a small-bodied sentinel fish species widely used in biomonitoring studies and provided new tools for assessing growth, population structure, and responses to environmental stressors. Her work demonstrated clear differences in growth patterns between male and female rainbow darters and helped establish growth as a sensitive endpoint for evaluating environmental change and wastewater impacts in aquatic ecosystems.
Following her time in the Servos Lab, Alex worked as a biologist with the Arctic Research Group at the University of Waterloo before moving to British Columbia, where she became a biologist with Minnow Environmental.
