Patricia A. Soranno

Patricia A. Soranno serves as a Professor and Affiliated Faculty in the Department of Integrative Biology within Michigan State University's College of Natural Science, leading the Data-intensive Landscape Limnology lab. Her expertise spans landscape limnology, macrosystems ecology, and freshwater science with critical focus on land-water interactions and water quality dynamics in lake ecosystems.

Her research program systematically investigates lakes across three spatial scales (within-lake, lake catchment, landscape) through four interconnected lines: (1) land use impacts on lake nutrients and biological communities; (2) development of a landscape-context paradigm for lake ecosystems; (3) application of this paradigm to lake assessment and management; and (4) quantification of ecosystem reference conditions. She pioneers data-intensive science and team science methodologies to advance understanding of freshwater systems in broader environmental contexts.

The Data-intensive Landscape Limnology lab operates at the intersection of landscape ecology and limnology, employing innovative computational approaches to analyze complex lake-landscape relationships. Her work directly informs sustainable lake management practices and contributes to evolving frameworks in macrosystems ecology, emphasizing collaborative scientific culture and reproducible data-intensive research.