INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. – Stephanie Hampton, the Tahoe Environmental Research Center’s (TERC) new director, took to the stage as part of the Center’s science series to speak about her work in freshwater ecology, what excites her about lakes, and why she came to Tahoe to work at the TERC.

Hampton’s only been at the TERC for seven weeks, but she has two decades of experience in freshwater ecology research—which has helped inform stakeholders and policymakers in the environmental world. She previously worked as deputy director for the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis at the University of California, Santa Barbara, as well as director of the Center for Environmental Research, Education and Outreach at Washington State University, where she was also a professor.

During her talk, Hampton highlighted the scarcity of fresh water on Earth and how important it was to protect and steward that tiny amount.

A mere 0.02% of the surface water on Earth is renewable, liquid, fresh surface water, a paltry amount that nevertheless sustains all life on the planet. That fresh water moves around the world through large-scale physical science, but the actual quality of the water itself depends on the small-scale, driven by interactions of phytoplankton, zooplankton, bacteria, and fungi. (Hampton took a small aside to compliment the drinking water quality at Lake Tahoe now that she’s moved to the area.)

While she’s worked at many different lakes, one of her primary research areas is lake ice in winter: how it supports life and what’s at stake as lakes around the world become warmer. Though Lake Tahoe never freezes completely over, it used to be part of the Tahoe-Baikal Institute, connecting it with Lake Baikal in Siberia—where Hampton did research on under-ice algae.

Lake Baikal’s unique ecosystem was documented for 60 years by the Kozhov family, which Hampton praised for its completeness and the few gaps in time that the dataset had. Her work in looking at large datasets helped with developing theories on under-ice algal tufts. These large mats grow under the clear ice through winter, then break off and float to the bottom in spring when the ice melts, providing nutrition to bottom-feeders in the lake—similar to marine ecosystem food webs.

Now, through the funding of a National Science Foundation grant, lake scientists around the world are joining Hampton in the first year of lake sampling, comparing summer and winter dynamics across a huge range of metrics. One of the major reasons why Hampton feels that this work is important is because as lakes warm due to climate change, they become harder to manage—and hotter temperatures can be the first domino in a chain of biochemical reactions that can limit nutrients and increase pollution in lakes.

Another one of Hampton’s research areas is near-shore algae growth, which is a huge topic in Tahoe, and one of the reasons she was excited to work here. “The partnership between science and the community is one of the things that drew me to this position,” said Hampton.

Hampton told the Tribune that she has invested much of her first weeks at the TERC in getting to know her team and the partners around the lake who are involved in lake preservation, such as the League to Save Lake Tahoe and the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency. She was elated about the historical and longstanding interest that the community has had in the lake.

“It’s very hard in most places to move science to action,” said Hampton. “But I’m encouraged by the involvement on these issues. We can’t get paralyzed by things out of our control, so we have to do what we can and avoid harms where possible.”

As an ecologist, Hampton was excited to collaborate with the engineers, physical scientists, and environmental scientists who have informed much of the lake conservation, especially because the food web of Tahoe has been so changed by human interactions. She looks forward to projects on nearshore algae, plankton responses to physical sciences, and other ecological analyses of a lake rich with data.

“Lakes are an extremely precious resource for that scarcity of fresh water, which makes my work feel important and necessary,” said Hampton. She referenced the research she’d spoken about and all the colleagues and work that she’d been a part of in her career, saying, “This is what it takes to provide the kind of stewardship needed for this resource.”

The next science series at the TERC will be on May 1, regarding the American Pika. More details can be found on the TERC’s event page.

Eli Ramos is a reporter for Tahoe Daily Tribune. They are part of the 2024–26 cohort of California Local News Fellows through UC Berkeley.