Kelley Christensen

Kelley Christensen

Contact

  • Science and Technology Publications Writer, University Marketing and Communications

Biography

Kelley writes university research stories and articles for university publications. She studied news-editorial journalism and American literature at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and holds a master's in technical communication from Montana Tech. She is pursuing her doctorate in environmental policy at Michigan Tech.

About Kelley

  • Her career includes writing for small-town newspapers in Montana and working as a public information officer, an events coordinator, and science editor for an IEEE publication, Earthzine.
  • She enjoys hiking and cross-country skiing with her family, reading voraciously, crocheting, and exploring the Keweenaw.

Recent Stories 

Rethinking the Supply Chain to Save Endangered Trees

Tropical hardwood logs scattered on the ground. Image Credit: Xinfeng Xie

Apitong trees, native to Southeast Asian rainforests, have existed on Earth for more than 100 million years. Apitong trees can grow upwards of 200 feet tall, and one can imagine dinosaurs enjoying the leathery, prominently veined leaves for lunch. The tree’s flowers are palm-sized and starfish-like, their five petals tilted like a pinwheel in . . . Read More

Michigan Tech Students Participate in COP25

Michigan Technological University was granted official observer status to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP25) earlier this year. Adewale Adesanya and Alexis Pascaris chat with each other between sessions at COP25 in Madrid. Image . . . Read More

Supporting Winter Study

Skiplane flights support the researchers as they count moose and wolves and observe wolf behavior.

A line of spruce trees stark against the white. On every horizon, indigo ice honeycombed or wind- polished. Snow dunes echo the ridges of the island. From densely clumped balsam fir, a dark shape emerges. An elderly moose struggles through deep snow, its breath rapid clouds of desperation. Moments later, smaller shapes burst through the tree . . . Read More

Clouds and Soot: Understanding Air Pollution and Atmosphere Interactions

Researchers burn kerosene in an oil lamp under a ventilation hood. They pressurize the air with a pump to suck the smoke into the cloud chamber. The experiments in the cloud chamber have allowed the researchers to understand that the longer soot particles are in the atmosphere, the more opportunities they have to become cloud-processed, and the greater the chance the particles become compacted.

When carbon burns — whether it’s the charcoal on your barbeque or from a forest fire — soot is released into the atmosphere. But what goes up must come down, so what happens to soot? When soot particles are "cloud processed" they become more compact. The particles are incorporated into cloud droplets, which leads to the . . . Read More