Big Muddy Speaker Series presents:

In 2022, to celebrate the mid-career milestone of 20 years of working as a hydrologist on the Missouri River Carrie Elliott entered and finished the MR340.  Before the race Carrie understood a lot about how the river works and generally where to be in the channel, but as she trained that spring she began to look at the river and all data she’s collected about the river in new ways.  Have you ever wondered which sections of the river are faster, how changes in flow change the river’s speed, or exactly where in the channel flow is the fastest (and why)?  Come hear data-driven answers to these questions and more.

Carrie has worked at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Columbia Environmental Research Center in Columbia, Missouri for 20 years.  She has studied the Missouri River and its tributaries at a range of scales over much of the basin, from Montana to her local section of river in mid-Missouri.  Much of her research has focused on understanding habitats used by the endangered pallid sturgeon.  She has spent thousands of hours on boats mapping the river's bottom and currents. Last summer, while surveying habitat Carrie and a co-worker discovered a steamboat wreck.  Carrie spends much of her free time paddling and cycling along the banks of the Missouri.