Katrina Marini
Katrina has experience with groundwater hydrology, geologic modeling, and numerical modeling of groundwater flow and solute transport. At Barr, she develops and calibrates groundwater-flow models for mining, environmental remediation, and wellhead protection projects. She has also provided oversight during well installation, conducted slug and aquifer tests, and analyzed hydraulic capture zones at remediation sites.
Gabriel Kaplan
Carleton College, Class of 2025
Gabriel Kaplan is a senior geology major at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. He has worked with the Sierra Club Northstar Chapter, the geothermal firm Darcy Solutions, and the think tank Niskanen Center. Gabriel is interested in hydrogeology and natural resource policy, and hopes to work in these fields after graduation in June, 2025.
E. Calvin Alexander, Jr
Morse-Alumni Professor Emeritus
Earth Sciences Department
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Calvin Alexander was born and raised in Oklahoma. He graduated with a BS in Chemistry from Oklahoma State University in May 1966. While an undergraduate at OSU he developed a sport interest in cave exploration. He graduated with a PhD in Nuclear Chemistry from the University of Missouri at Rolla in January 1970. His thesis project was on noble gas isotopes in meteorites and the early history of the Solar System. In February 1970 Calvin accepted a position as a post-Doctorial researcher in the Physic Department at the University of California at Berkeley where he was part of the Apollo Lunar Sample Analysis effort. In September 1973 he joined the faculty of the Geology and Geophysics Department (now the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences) at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Calvin retired in May 2014.
Karst phenomena are one career-long focus of Calvin’s scientific interests. His early sport caving morphed into a major research interest in Karst Hydrogeology in the mid-1970s. Much of his research and teaching in the last three decades has focused on how humans interact with karst hydrogeology. The interface between science and society, an interface that is intellectually exciting and challenging, can also be frustrating. But that interface is critical as our species faces unprecedented challenges in sustainably managing the Earth’s surface environment.
A second career-long interests has been Planetary Geology — both of other planets in the Solar System and of the Earth as a planet. It has been his great privilege to be alive and involved in Planetary Geology during the initial exploration of the Solar System. He is the Curator of Meteorites Emeritus at the University of Minnesota and has taught classes at several levels on Planetary Geology, meteorites, geochronology and cosmochemistry.
Gary Johnson
A Minnesota native, Gary Johnson attended University of Delaware, obtaining a BS in Civil Engineering. Upon graduation, a naturalist at heart, he took a 5 ½ month camping road trip, crisscrossing the US and Canada, returning to Delaware to pursue a lifelong career as an industrial construction manager. Eventually returning to Minnesota, he and his wife designed and built an energy efficient home, started a garden, a family and led a tranquil rural life. About a year ago, a threat to their quality of life emerged when a large out of state developer announced plans to partner with the City of Farmington and build a 708 MW hyperscale data center (8th largest by power consumption) with only 250’ setbacks, 50-80’ budlings, demanding more water than the city of Farmington currently uses. Thus, his research, education, and outreach began to try and inform ignorant public officials of the threat of these water guzzling
Cathy Johnson
Cathy Johnson came out of retirement to organize and chair the Coalition for Responsible Data Center Development, when she realized that an out of state land developer was planning to build an enormous hyper-scale data center, nestled between 3 residential neighborhoods, close to the home she and her husband designed and built 47 years ago, in Castle Rock Township, with the idea of energy conservation and sustainable living. As a Dakota County Master Gardener and living in an agricultural community, she sees ground water as the life blood, enabling folks to live and thrive only when it is treated responsibly. After careful and considerable research about data centers’ ground water use and other issues, she used her organizational and communications talents, honed during 40 years of classroom teaching, to build the coalition and attempt to garner support, helping folks to recognize the threat of hyperscale data centers to ground water quality and quantity. Now, she has taken the fight to the state level, and is a frequent testifier at committee hearings, urging state officials to legislate responsibly and protect the precious resource of our MN ground water. She holds a B.S. in Home Economics Education from the University of Delaware and M. Ed. from the University of Minnesota.
Mo Feshami
Mo Feshami has over 38 years of experience in the telecommunications industry, with majority of that as a telecommunications and data center network architect. His interest in ground water sustainability began when a developer announced plans to build a hyper scale data center next to his home with a peak-daily-water-demand higher than the entire city, when fully operational. Professionally, he has designed data center communication networks for Fortune 500 companies including several in Minnesota. That experience has given him insights into cloud services providers and data center operations and critical resources. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech University.
Peg Furshong
Peg Furshong joined CURE in August of 2012 where she is the Director of Constituent Relations & Special Project. She leads their water work under the Natural & Working Lands Program. Her interest primarily lies at the nexus of energy, water, climate and land management practices. She has been instrumental in the development of our Connecting People with the Outdoors through our signature Tallgrass Prairie BioBlitz and our Freshwater Mussel Field Days.
As an educator throughout most of her professional career, Peg worked with young adults in higher education – facilitating programs in leadership, civic engagement, sustainability and diversity. Born and raised in Montana, she came to Minnesota with a love for water, and the values of the natural world. She lives with her family in southwestern Minnesota on a small farm just north of the Minnesota River.
Carrie Jennings, Research and Policy Director, she/her/hers
Carrie joined Freshwater in 2016. She has been a field geologist for 24 years, 22 of those with the Minnesota Geological Survey and two with the DNR, Division of Lands and Minerals. Carrie is Adjunct Graduate Faculty at the U of M and was the science reports lead for the County Geologic Atlas program at the DNR. She applies her understanding of glacial geology and landscape evolution to shape policy and technical approaches for managing surface water and groundwater, avoiding hazards, and using resources wisely. Carrie and her husband live on a 120-acre farm which is primarily in a permanent conservation easement through the Dakota County Farmland and Natural Areas Program. Livestock is limited to a dozen chickens, a dog and a couple of cats. She has twice been elected town board supervisor and served on the planning commission for Eureka Township.
Alyssa Fabia, Tribal Outreach and Research Coordinator
Alyssa joined Freshwater in December 2024 after 18 months as a contractor. Alyssa has a graduate degree in Development Practice from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, and an undergraduate degree in Anthropology from Hamline University. Alyssa’s past work in publishing, event organizing and nonprofits has covered logistics, operations and other creative problem solving. Their hobbies include climbing trees, showing up in unexpected places, and reading poetry books in trees with a cup of tea. As part of Freshwater’s research and policy team, Alyssa will help develop strategies to engage tribal governments in sustainable water management.
Rosie Russell, Equity and Engagement Specialist, she/her/hers
Rosie is a social sustainability professional and owner of Community Kinetics LLC residing in the Twin Cities metro area. She holds a B.S. in Sustainable Development from Buena Vista University, and a M.S. in Bioproducts & Biosystems Engineering from the University of Minnesota, where her research used co-design methodologies to build a social organizational life cycle assessment framework for a social justice-oriented food hub in Minnesota. In addition to having over six years of experience in watershed management planning, she has co-founded and co-facilitated two diversity, equity and inclusion committees. She routinely presents about her work and research at conferences, universities and schools. Her expertise is centered around empowering connections through social network mapping, co-designing equitable stakeholder engagement methodologies, and building shared language across multi-disciplinary networks. In her free time, Rosie loves to cook meals over the fire, romp around in her vegetable garden, and gather with friends and community over food and drink.
Kevin Kuehner
Kevin Kuehner is a hydrologist with the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, based in Preston, Minnesota. His work focuses on monitoring agricultural contaminants in surface water and groundwater at multiple scales in southeast Minnesota’s karst region. Kevin has degrees in water resources management and soil science from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and has over 25 years of experience leading and managing collaborative water quality monitoring and implementation projects.
Peter Kang
Peter Kang is an Associate Professor and the Gibson Chair of Hydrogeology in the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences at the University of Minnesota. He earned his BSc in 2008 from Seoul National University, followed by an MSc (2010) and a PhD (2014) from MIT. Dr. Kang has received several prestigious awards, including the InterPore Award for Porous Media Research (2025) from the InterPore Society, the Chin-Fu Tsang Coupled Processes Award from CouFrac (2022), and the NSF CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation (2021).
Valerie Neppl, Dakota County Groundwater Protection Unit Supervisor
Valerie Neppl has a master’s degree and professional engineering license in
environmental engineering and has worked with government agencies for over 20 years managing environmental health and protection projects. She has been with Dakota County since 2018 as the Groundwater Protection Unit Supervisor where she is responsible for leading development and implementation of the County Groundwater Plan as well as other strategic groundwater and drinking water protection efforts. Valerie also serves on the Metropolitan Area Water Supply Advisory Committee (MAWSAC).
Ashley Muench
I am a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, working towards a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science and a minor in Environmental Engineering Technology. As a volunteer for Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance, I site lead for an Annual Watershed Cleanup and monitor chloride in local streams. Since 2023, I interned for the Lakeshore Water Institute in Manitowoc, WI, assessing the impacts of rain, runoff, and restoration on local streams with Dr. Richard Hein and Dr. Rebecca Abler as advisors. I also intern for Glacial Lakes Conservancy in Sheboygan, WI. During those internships, I had the titles of Quality Assurance/Quality Control, Lead Data Analyst, Water Conservation Intern, and Land Project Coordinator Intern. In the Summer of 2025, I will be interning with the Freshwater@UW program on a project titled “Evaluating PFAS biochar sequestration performance at field scale” with Dr. Kpoti Gunn. With my internships, I regularly present project findings at research symposiums.
Today, I am doing a research project titled “An Analysis of Regulatory Impacts on Groundwater Quality in the Silurian Aquifer of Northeastern Wisconsin.” I will answer the question “Has the 2018 NR151.075 Silurian Bedrock Performance Standards and implementation of local regulations based on the 2007 Karst Task Force recommendations affected groundwater quality in Northeast Wisconsin?” with Kevin Erb and Dr. John Luczaj as my advisors. The last update to groundwater quality in response to the
2007 Karst Task Force was done in 2015. Today, ten years later, I will be providing another update to the research that county officials will use to assess current manure spreading practices. After graduation, I hope to continue my efforts in water quality and conservation.
John Barry
John is a senior hydrologist in the Groundwater Atlas Program at the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, with over 20 years of experience in hydrogeology and project management. His current responsibilities include focused research, spring monitoring, dye tracing, springshed mapping, and karst characterization through collaborations with partners at the Minnesota Geological Survey, Minnesota Department of Agriculture, University of Minnesota, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, and soil and water conservation districts. Additionally, he conducts countywide aquifer-mapping and characterization projects in southeastern Minnesota that use geologic and geochemical data and geographic information systems (GIS) to create reports for water resource assessment and management.
Tannie Eshenaur
David Schultz is Distinguished University Professor in the Departments of Political Science, Environmental Studies, and Legal Studies at Hamline University. He is also an adjunct professor of Law at the University of Minnesota and at the University of St. Thomas, and an affiliate faculty member at the Lithuanian Military Academy in Vilnius, Lithuania. A four-time Fulbright scholar who has taught extensively in Europe and Asia, and the winner of the Leslie A. Whittington national award for excellence in public affairs teaching, David is the author of more than 45 books and 200+ articles on various aspects of American politics, election law, and the media and politics, and he is regularly interviewed and quoted in the local, national, and international media on these subjects including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, the Economist, and National Public Radio. His most recent books are Constitutional Precedent in US Supreme Court Reasoning (2022), Handbook of Election Law (2022), and Presidential Swing States (2022). Prior to teaching, Professor Schultz served as a city director of planning, zoning and code enforcement, and as a housing and economic planner for a community action agency. David is on the ACS Minnesota Advisory Board and is former executive director of Common Cause Minnesota and a former vice-president for the Minnesota and South Texas chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union. He is licensed to practice law in Minnesota and before the US Supreme Court.