Rate My Professor Elka Porter

Porter's research centers on the effects of water flow and organisms on sediment-water interactions, or benthic-pelagic coupling processes, and their subsequent impacts on water quality, with particular relevance to the Chesapeake Bay. She designed and utilizes shear turbulence resuspension mesocosms (STURM) for experiments mimicking tides and storms at the Patuxent Environmental & Aquatic Research Laboratory (PEARL) in St. Leonard, Maryland, since 2015, often involving undergraduate students. Key publications include Porter ET, Cornwell JC (2023), Mesocosm Approaches to the Examination of Benthic-Pelagic Coupling, with emphasis on turbulence, Limnology and Oceanography; Porter ET et al. (2022), Effect of tidal resuspension with oyster biodeposits on the nutrient and oxygen dynamics, Marine Ecology Progress Series; Porter ET et al. (2020), Effects of hard clam density and bottom shear stress on cohesive sediment erodibility, Journal of Marine Research; Porter ET et al. (2020), Effects of resuspension of eastern oyster biodeposits on phytoplankton community structure, Marine Ecology Progress Series; and Porter ET, Breitburg DL (2016), Eastern oyster valve gape behavior under diel-cycling hypoxia, Marine Biology. Her contributions include findings that tidal resuspension can decrease water clarity, release nutrients, increase phytoplankton, and alter ecosystem dynamics. Porter received the University of Baltimore Yale Gordon College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Scholarship Award in 2019 and the Award Certificate of Best Collaboration of Professor with Undergraduate Supplemental Instructor in 2014. She actively mentors students through summer research opportunities at facilities like the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center and PEARL, providing hands-on experiences akin to her own formative internships.