Trent University Luminary: Dr. Maggie Xenopoulos
4 minutes in length
Description: Dr. Maggie Xenopoulos
Dr. Maggie Xenopoulos:
I'm Maggie Xenopoulos and I'm an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at
Trent University. My research interests are actually in aquatic ecosystems.
I am very much interested in trying to understand how we humans are changing our
lakes and rivers and in particular, I try to understand how land use like agricultural land
use and urban land use is changing the materials that's coming into our streams and
lakes and how they in turn effect the way that the streams and lakes are functioning.
It's really great to be working here on these issues, we have a lot of issues that we
should be concerned about. In fact, I'm very concerned about the future of my children,
whether they'll have clean water when they grow up, whether they'll have the same
fishing opportunities, whether they'll be able to go for a nice, quiet stroll along a stream.
And so it is really, I think, very important that we work and try to maintain the nice water
that we have.
At Trent it is a very nice place to do this type of research because we are surrounded by
all kinds of water. There's a lot of nice flowing rivers just north of us big, flowing rivers
that are still wild, that are not yet dammed. All you have to do is drive 10 minutes and
you're in cottage country, so it's just a great place to be.
Oh, my work keeps me very busy all the time. I spend a good chunk teaching students,
of course when I'm not on sabbatical. I'm very excited about the classes that I teach. I
teach in Aquatic Ecology, Limnology sometimes, which is the study of inland waters, I
teach about global change in aquatic ecosystems, so how do the changes that we see
in Ontario compare to the rest of the world. When you incorporate climate and other
stressors like invasive species... I have a gaggle of grad students and undergraduates
that I help write proposals and do their research; we go out on the field and collect water
and analyze the water for its quality for the critters that live in it.
We need water to survive, we need fresh water to survive, and the future is in water. We
have to find a nice balance where we humans are using the water, where we are using
the ecosystems that generate the water, the streams and the lakes and the services
that they provide to humans, but at the same time where we maintain clean water, so a
nice circle; and that's really hard to do because we tend to - when we use the water, we
want nice lifestyles, and we build farms, we want food to grow and eat, we need to build
cities to accommodate our increasing population and so we need to also apply
conservation measures so that we keep having in the future this very valuable resource.
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Trent University is an ideal place to do this type of research because the location where
we're at, all we have to do is drive five to ten minutes and we're surrounded by lakes
and rivers. We're also not very far from some from northern parts of Ontario where there
is nice clean systems that we can use to study as a contrast.
There's a nice group of researchers that do water research at Trent so it's a great place
to collaborate, it's a great place to meet other students and other faculty in the area.
There's a lot of nice resources at Trent as well.
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