Urban estuaries
Tracking the health of New York’s waters, from Long Island Sound to Jamaica Bay, as cities and climate reshape them.
Marine Biogeochemist — NY Marine Biogeochemist — New York
Georgie
Efegenia
Humphries
PhD candidate studying the smallest life in our urban coastlines.
About
Georgie Efegenia Humphries is a marine biogeochemist and PhD candidate at the Graduate Center — City University of New York, where she studies the smallest life in the water, plankton and bacteria, in urban coastlines and estuaries.
Since 2019 she’s been a researcher at the Greenfield Lab at CUNY’s Advanced Science Research Center, splitting her time between the lab and the water: sampling New York’s estuaries, piloting underwater robots to track algal blooms, and publishing her findings in scientific journals.
Her additional work has included Climate Justice Initiatives with the CUNY Graduate Center, and nature-based features research with the Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay.
She also teaches environmental science and chemistry topics at Queens College and FIT, and is a frequent voice for making science understandable, from podcasts to classrooms.
Affiliations
Research
Plankton & bacteria
Studying the associations between our water’s tiniest inhabitants, and their role in cycling critical nutrients.
Urban chemistry
Using advanced tools and technology to monitor and measure nutrients in our waterbodies.
Publications
All on Scholar 2024
Shore and mid-channel surveys reveal distinct phytoplankton-bacterial population associations along an urban estuary
Aquatic Microbial Ecology · 90: 121–139
2024
Phytoplankton assemblage responses to nitrogen following COVID-19 stay-in-place orders in western Long Island Sound
Marine Environmental Research · 196: 106371
2023
Transitions in nitrogen and organic matter form and concentration correspond to bacterial population dynamics in a hypoxic urban estuary
Biogeochemistry · 163(2): 219–243
2023
The influences of phenology, spatial distribution, and nitrogen form on Long Island Sound phytoplankton biomass and taxonomic composition
Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science · 292: 108451
Contact
Let’s get in touch
Open to research roles, collaborations, and science-communication work.