Tracy joined the Environmental Health program in March of 2015. Tracy has extensive experience in hydrologic and hydraulic modeling through her doctoral research as well as almost 10 years of engineering consulting experience. She is also well trained in water quality analyses, as she studied the fate of phosphorus in urban environments by “storm chasing” for her Master’s research. Although an engineer, she has research experience in biology including a study of diatoms as quality indicators, seagrass displacement, and eutrophication from nutrient loading. Tracy has also studied the impact of public outreach by social media as well as physical/visual learning, as she mentored and was the design engineer for two integrated, nationally winning, EPA Rainworks Challenge teams.  

At Mote, Tracy manages the Environmental Health Program, investigating the effects of marine and freshwater chemicals on public health. A focus of the program is Mote’s Beach Conditions Reporting System, which is an operational, non-federal, sub-regional observing system providing real and near-time data from the Florida Gulf coast. Tracy works with Gulf Coast beaches to organize twice daily beach condition reports, which are available to the public at https://visitbeaches.org/. She also brings creative ways to educate and inform the public about Florida red tide and other harmful algae blooms.