Dr. Sally Entrekin

FACULTY AFFILIATE   |   Global Change Center

Entomology

Lab Website  •  Google Scholar  •  Dept Page

(540) 231-5978  •  sallye@vt.edu

Dr. Entrekin’s research program at Virginia Tech focuses on macroinvertebrate population and community ecology and ecosystem function. Her research group’s aim is to leverage what the biological communities and their associated functions reveal about aquatic ecosystem change to identify solutions towards sustainable water quality and quantity. Her group uses the coupled integration of macroinvertebrate communities and ecosystem dynamics at the land-water interface to understand how people impact freshwater quality, quantity, and community structure and function.  Dr. Entrekin’s current research program addresses global change by working across disciplines that engage students and the public in water quality and quantity issues typically from development for urban centers, agriculture, and resource extraction.

Dr. Entrekin’s current research focuses on how watershed fragmentation, over-consumption of freshwater and contamination from agriculture, urbanization, and resource extraction interact to alter community structure and ecosystem functions in streams and wetlands. Because freshwater ecosystems support aquatic invertebrate species vulnerable to environmental alterations that sustain food webs, her research is of broad interest to managers and the public. As an Associate Professor in the Entomology Department at Virginia Tech, she publishes on macroinvertebrate-environmental interactions, freshwater quantity and quality, and ecosystem ecology.

Dr. Entrekin also serves as the Secretary for the Society for Freshwater Science and is the co-associate editor for the journal Freshwater Science, Bridges, that integrates science and decision-making. At Virginia Tech, Dr. Entrekin teaches the cross-listed courses Aquatic Entomology and Freshwater Biomonitoring.