NALMS Executive Committee
Kiyoko Yokota (President)
Kiyoko Yokota, Ph.D., CLM is a limnologist at State University of New York College at Oneonta, USA. She graduated from Saint Cloud State University in Minnesota with B.S. in Biology with Ecology Emphasis (summa cum laude) and qualified as an Associate Professional Engineer while working for a civil engineering consultancy in Tokyo, Japan. She was responsible for environmental assessment and water quality forecasting and management projects for new and existing reservoirs, lakes, and rivers. After earning a Ph.D. in Ecology, Evolution and Behavior at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities, Kiyoko completed a short-term postdoctoral training at Netherland Institute for Ecology (NIOO-KNAW) before she started teaching full time, starting at the University of Tampa in Florida. Kiyoko’s service to NALMS includes Region 2 Director (2015–18), Student Programs member (2016–present), Government Affairs Committee member (2018–20), Membership ad-hoc Group member (2018), and Professional Certification Program Lead (2018–present).
Kellie Merrell (President-Elect)
Contact NALMS’ President-Elect
Kellie Merrell has had the privilege of monitoring the status and trends of Vermont’s inland lakes for the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation since 2001. Before that she was an Aquatic Biologist with EPA working on the Mid-Atlantic Integrated Assessment and a Senior Information Management Analyst for the environmental services division of Technology, Planning and Management Corporation. She has served as president and vice president of the board of trustees for the nonprofit Passumpsic Valley Land Trust. She’s currently NALMS Region 1 Director and co-chair of the 314 Clean Lakes Program Working Group. Kellie has a B.A. from Hood College and an M.S. from University of Maryland where she studied Vallisneria americana.
Christopher Mikolajczyk (Past President)
Christopher (Chris) Mikolajczyk, CLM, attended his first NALMS conference in Madison, Wisconsin in 2001. From there, Chris went on to serve as the Region 2 Director from 2012–2015 and both served and chaired the certification committee from 2015–2019. Chris is actively involved in the New Jersey Coalition of Lake Associations (NJCOLA), has presented at and sponsored several New York State Federation of Lake Association annual conferences for several years running now and has recently joined the Colorado Lake and Reservoir Management Association after his move to that state. Chris is a CLM and senior manager of aquatics for Princeton Hydro and conducts the management, oversight, and coordination of aquatic ecology and water resource projects in three main areas: aquatic resource restoration and management, aquatic ecosystem sampling and investigations, and stormwater quality modeling and management. Chris has been with Princeton Hydro since 1999 and has studied and managed well over 75 lakes in his career there. Chris possesses an associate degree in ecology and environmental technology from Paul Smiths College and both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Geography (with an emphasis on water resources) from Rutgers University.
Danielle Wain (Secretary)
Dr. Danielle Wain is the Lake Science Director at the 7 Lakes Alliance, a regional NGO in the Belgrade Lakes watershed in central Maine, where she leads the water quality monitoring research program across the lakes. She has a BS in Civil Engineering (with an Environmental Engineering focus) from Cornell University and completed her PhD in Civil Engineering (with an emphasis in Environmental and Water Resources Engineering) at Iowa State University. Before moving to Maine, she was a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Water Quality Engineering at the University of Bath (UK). Her expertise is in process-based understanding of how lake and reservoir hydrodynamics impact ecology and biogeochemistry and how we leverage this knowledge to develop management strategies.–
Shannon Brattebo (Treasurer)
Shannon Brattebo, PE, has been an environmental engineer and limnologist for Tetra Tech, Inc. in Washington State since 1999. Shannon’s work has focused on lake and reservoir water quality, restoration, and management both in the Pacific Northwest and across the nation. Shannon has B.S. in Civil/Environmental Engineering from Seattle University and an M.S.C.E in Civil/Environmental Engineering from the University of Washington. Shannon has been a member of NALMS since 2001 and is a current board member and past secretary of the Washington Lakes Protection Association (WALPA). Shannon is also a past Region 10 NALMS Director (2015 – 2018).