Rate My Professor Maria Strack

Maria Strack is Professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Management at the University of Waterloo and holds the position of Canada Research Chair in Wetland Climate Solutions. She earned her PhD from McMaster University. Strack’s research investigates the interactions between ecology, hydrology, biogeochemistry and soil properties in wetland ecosystems, with a particular emphasis on feedbacks between wetlands and climate through controls on peatland greenhouse gas exchange in natural, disturbed and restored ecosystems. Her work includes collaboration on peatland restoration projects across Canada involving sites used for horticultural peat extraction, former well-pads and roads related to oil extraction, and peatland construction in oil sands mining regions, evaluating conditions that help return a carbon accumulation function post-restoration. She also examines the potential impact of climate change on peatlands through plot to ecosystem scale manipulation of temperature and water table, as well as peatland methane dynamics using geophysical techniques to monitor gas accumulation and release.

Strack was named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and member of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists in 2020. She has served as Professor at the University of Waterloo since 2019, following her role as Associate Professor from 2014 to 2019. Her research interests encompass soil greenhouse gas fluxes, wetland restoration, ecohydrology, organic soil physics and mitigation of land-use change greenhouse gas fluxes. Key recent publications include co-authored works such as “Greenhouse gas emission factors associated with rewetting of organic soils” (2016) and studies on carbon exchange in restored and natural peatlands published in journals including Global Change Biology, Ecohydrology and Mires and Peat. Strack’s program contributes to understanding peatlands as the world’s largest natural terrestrial carbon stores and supports nature-based climate solutions.