By Karrigan Börk

Readers of the California Water Blog (Blog) may have noticed some changes over the past year. The Blog is a product of the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences (CWS), and after many years of dedicated service, longtime CWS leaders Dr. Andrew Rypel (Director) and Dr. Cathryn Lawrence (Assistant Director) are transitioning to new chapters.

Dr. Karrigan Börk (me!) and Miranda Tilcock are stepping into their big shoes, and we hope to keep CWS and the Blog as great resources for researchers, policy makers, and the public.   

CWS will be 27 years old in October (Fall 1998 – present), and it’s had a series of great water leaders. Our first director, Geologist Dr. Jeffrey Mount, and his fish biologist co-conspirator Dr. Peter Moyle founded CWS as a home for integrated research and imaginative approaches to water challenges in California and beyond. They were soon joined by agricultural economist Dr. Richard Howitt and Civil and Environmental Engineer Dr. Jay Lund. And then Dr. Thomas Harter in 2012, followed by additional Associate Directors. Jeff led CWS until his retirement in 2009, when Jay Lund inherited the Director hot seat. Jay led CWS until Andrew Rypel took over in 2019. Andrew passed the baton to Karrigan Börk in spring 2024, and recently moved to become Director of the Auburn University School of Fisheries, Aquaculture and Aquatic Sciences. The directors have been supported, guided, and often led by several staff members, who manage the day to day responsibilities of the Center. The list includes Cheryl Smith, Diana Cummings, Assistant Director Ellen Mantalica, and most recently, Assistant Director Cathryn Lawrence (2010 – 2025). Cathryn retired in fall 2024, but came back for a few more months to keep CWS steady during the search for her successor.

CWS grew from a small stream of ideas to a raging river of projects, work, classes, and ideas. Peter, Jay, and Andrew have written countless blogs featured on the California Water Blog (and they will continue to write more!), mentored hundreds of students, and managed innumerable projects throughout the years. This includes CWS’s famous ecogeomorphology class to study watersheds as a whole with interdisciplinary groups of students that was started in CWS’s early days. This transformative class has taken students to places like the Grand Canyon, Tuolumne, the Grande Ronde River, and more. Their legacy is continued by CWS researchers Drs. Carson Jeffres and Sarah Yarnell who continue to spark the love of water and ecology with undergraduate and graduate students alike. Cathryn kept our building and everyone in it on track, or as we all like to say “kept the wheels from flying off the bus”. To put that growth and change into perspective, consider Figure 3, a chart of the research dollars from these past leaders’ tenure at watershed:

The Center’s team of Professional Researchers and Faculty use these funds for projects that employ many students, post docs, and specialists for a wide array impactful research. The Center hosts many research groups who are the heart of Watershed: the Johnson–Jeffres Research Group, Durand Research Group, Yarnell Research Group, Lusardi Lab, and Walter Research Group.  

That’s a lot of bugs counted, water measured, chlorophyll filtered, otoliths polished, eye lenses peeled, and so much more. This work was done over the years by many tireless staff, professional researchers, and students, yet it couldn’t have continued without the dedicated leadership we’ve benefited from over the many years. Everyone at CWS is deeply grateful to Jeff, Peter, Andrew, Jay, and Cathryn for their tireless leadership. 

No one can replace these leaders, but we are excited to follow in their big footprints and continue their work with the same care and attention to the Center’s people, partners, and friends. I’m Karrigan Börk, and I’m a law professor, fish ecologist, and a longtime fan of CWS. I’m a transplanted Kansan. I came to Davis for a PhD in Ecology in 2005, and took off for a few years in the middle to get my law degree. I finished my PhD in 2011, spent a few years working for judges back in Kansas, and then came back to Davis a decade ago. I took an ecogeomorphology class on the Green River with Jeff and Peter in 2006 (Figure 6), and it changed the way I thought about fish, rocks, and rivers. I rowed a raft for the ecogeomorphology class in 2015 (Figure 7), and I’ve tried to model my teaching after the experiences I had on those trips (Figure 8). I work at the intersection of water law, environmental law, and science, and I’m interested in water rights and other state conservation law issues. I’m excited to support the great work and great people at CWS.

I’m also excited to be working with our new Deputy Director, Miranda:

Hi! I’m Miranda, originally from Missouri (another midwest transplant), I moved to California in 2006. Like many that move to Davis, I found only every reason to stay. I have had the pleasure of holding almost every position at CWS since I started as an undergraduate intern in 2011, where I used to measure and identify larval fish while occasionally sampling fish on the Suisun Marsh and South Bay. Eventually, I was hired as a Junior Specialist to chase juvenile salmon in rice fields, but mostly I was getting stuck in mud. However, that mud became really important and led to an incredible graduate school experience using isotopes to distinguish between floodplains and river habitats to identify rearing habitats for juvenile salmon. This then led to further research endeavors using fish eyes to reconstruct their life history to see which habitats adults were using as juveniles. If any of this is sounding familiar it might be because I wrote multiple blogs on the subject like this one, and this one, and unfortunately this one as well. Perhaps most exciting for fellow nerds, this work was featured on Science Friday. 

After graduation, I continued working at CWS for a few years as an Associate Specialist and the Lab Safety Coordinator where I continued mentoring students and peeling many fish eyes. I then decided to branch out, shifting focus to work for the Delta Stewardship Council (DSC) where I had a great time planning the 2024 Bay-Delta Science Conference,working with NCEAS, among many other things with the agency. While I really enjoyed working at DSC, I am really looking forward to my new role here as Deputy Director. I hope to continue the great work of my predecessors and to continue to build a positive community that fosters collaborative water research with the California water community. 

Watersheds and landscapes are constantly changing in response to changes in species, flow, climate, and human perturbations. So, too, CWS will continue to evolve, reacting to new pressures and new questions under the broad framework of water and ecosystem management, in California and beyond. What won’t change is our commitment to problem-focused, relevant, nonpartisan work by biologists, geologists, hydrologists, engineers, economists, legal scholars and others working together to help understand and solve California’s complex water problems.