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Stephanie Rosenberg ’10

A year in waders leads to a career in environmental engineering.

Stephanie Rosenberg ’10 (environmental studies major, biology minor) entered the environmental studies program intending to pursue environmental law, but found herself enjoying classes with labs far more than those about regulations.

She hoped to structure her senior project around a water study, and Ryan Taylor, an associate professor of environmental studies, suggested studying the morphology of Blind Brook, the stream that runs through campus.

Rosenberg spent an entire year in waders, measuring and documenting the shape and characteristics of the stream’s channel from top to bottom. Taylor recalls teaching her the methodology, and how she then ran with it.

“She was bushhogging out there sometimes with a machete just to get through the briars in the fall; then she would convince friends to go out in the field with her in the snow and ice during winter break when no one else was here,” he says.

After graduation, Rosenberg took an office job in environmental health and safety. Unsatisfied, she considered her next move. “I remembered the senior project and I felt, well, honestly, that’s what I want to do,” she says.

She earned her master’s degree in hydrogeology at Stony Brook and is now happily working in the field as a hydrogeologist at Walden Associates, an environmental engineering company.