Sophia Terian

Sophia Terian is a 2023-2027 Self Graduate Fellow pursuing a Ph.D. in Environmental and Water Resources Engineering. She received her Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from KU in Spring 2023 and began her PhD in Fall 2023. Her passion to protect and remediate the environment has led her to study ways to harness the natural contributions of wetland ecosystems to improve water quality. Born and raised in Johnson County, Kansas, she aspires to give back to her community by using her Ph.D. to positively affect water quality in the Midwest and create solutions for agricultural pollution through wetland design and science policy advocacy. She is currently working on predicting reactive nitrogen transformation and transport in wetland-river networks using both process-based models and machine learning algorithms.

To gain practice in advocating for science-supported policies, Sophie is a Graduate Student Senator in KU’s Student Senate and a member of Jayhawks for Science Policy. In her free time, she sings with KU choirs and vocal jazz groups, and spoils her two cats, Pablo and Greta.

Mentor: Amy Hansen, Ph.D., Diane M. Darwin Chair’s Council Assistant Professor