Amanda Lee

I didn't know that the lake had been dying pretty much my whole 20 something years of living until I really started research at GSL. And honestly, I didn't know that it was dying until a year into my research when all the press came out and the media was kind of ablaze with, “Oh my gosh, the lake is dying,” “Oh my gosh, the lake is drying up.” And kind of the talk at GSLI was, “Well yeah, of course, we've been seeing it drying up.” And now everyone's feeling the effects of that and seeing how much the lake has shrunk. So it's really sad. In the lake circles, it's very somber. I think it shifted my perspective as an undergraduate researcher just wanting to get into science. It gave me a huge appreciation for the work that I get to do. This work is important, and it's actually going to impact our future.

Amanda Lee is a student researcher at Westminster University’s Great Salt Lake Institute (GSLI) under the tutelage of Dr. Bonnie Baxter. She has studied the pelicans on Gunnison Island, the soil on the shores of the lake, and the water and microbes in the North Arm around the railroad causeway. She plans to go to medical school and make connections between environmental health and human health.