Kathryn Cottingham has been named editor-in-chief of Ecology, the flagship journal of the Ecological Society of America (ESA), of which Dr. Cottingham is a fellow.
Dr. Cottingham is the Dartmouth Professor in the Arts & Sciences, a professor in the department of biological sciences, and in the Ecology, Evolution, Ecosystems and Society Graduate Program at Dartmouth College in Hanoer, New Hampshire. Her research interests include the dynamics of lake plankton communities, linkages between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, and the applications of ecological principles to public and environmental health. From 2015 to 2017, she served as chair of Dartmouth’s department of biological sciences. She has been a faculty member at Dartmouth since 1998.
Outside of her work at Dartmouth, Dr. Cottingham serves as vice-chair of the Lake Sunapee Protective Association Science Advisory Committee and on the Science Advisory Board for the Jefferson Project at Lake George. From 2017 to 2019, she was a rotating program officer in the Population and Community Ecology cluster in the Division of Environmental Biology at the National Science Foundation.
In a press release announcing her appointment, ESA president Laura Huenneke said Dr. Cottingham’s “broad research experience in ecology and its applications to environmental health, her leadership background, and her engagement in scientific outreach all make her an excellent choice to oversee Ecology.”
Dr. Cottingham is a graduate of Drew University in Madison, New Jersey, where she double-majored in mathematics and biology. She holds a master’s degree and Ph.D. both from the Center for Limnology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.