Amy Holt

Amy Holt joined the Alaska Coastal Rainforest Center (ACRC) as a postdoctoral fellow in 2025. Prior to that, she held a postdoctoral position at Florida State University, where she also earned her Ph.D. and M.Sc. To date, her research has focused on understanding the sources of organic carbon in glacier ecosystems and how glacier decline, both in southeast Alaska and globally, influences stream biogeochemistry and watershed carbon cycling.

More broadly, Amy is interested in projects assessing the role of organic carbon in a range of aquatic environments from the world’s oceans to coastal waters of British Columbia and southeast Alaska, to peatlands in the U.K, permafrost in the Arctic and lakes in the Antarctic. Much of this research has an anthropogenic element and works to gain a mechanistic understanding of how climate change particularly within the cryosphere continues to impact the sources, fate and cycling of organic carbon at watershed and global scales. To do this, Amy uses a range of analytical techniques including bioincubation experiments, molecular, biomarker and isotopic analyses.

At ACRC, Amy continues to examine how cryospheric change, particularly glacier retreat, shapes the delivery and composition of organic carbon in freshwater and coastal ecosystems. Her work also assesses the role of glacier derived carbon, including organic carbon and methane, in stream food webs and watershed biogeochemistry.

Outside of research, Amy enjoys yoga, hiking, cooking, and, whenever possible, skiing and climbing.