Institute at Brown for Environment and Society

Stephanie Yin '12

Biography

Stephanie Yin '12 is an environmental science concentrator interested in marine ecology and geology.  Having grown up in suburban New Jersey, it wasn’t until she spent a summer in Indonesia after her freshman year that she discovered her love for marine ecosystems. In collaboration with Prof. Mark Bertness (Ecology & Evolutionary Biology), Steph is quantifying changes in the functioning and services provided by salt marshes as a result of creek bank die-off. Creek bank die-off has been occurring in Cape Cod salt marshes over the past three decades, but little is known about the effects on the many services these coastal ecosystems provide. Her research compares healthy and die-off marshes in Cape Cod to assess differences in ecosystem services (particularly nutrient assimilation and carbon storage) caused by die-off. Steph drums in Brown’s Japanese drumming troupe, Gendo Taiko, and volunteers with the Brown Refugee Youth Training and Enrichment program. In her spare time, she enjoys collecting seahorse paraphernalia, reading comic books, baking pies, and playing the banjo.