WVU researcher digs into soil science with back-to-back national fellowships

Hannah DeHetre revels in the nature surrounding her at the WVU Core Arboretum. A doctoral student in biology, DeHetre said she 's developed such a strong attachment to Appalachia that she sports a tattoo of a rhododendron, the West Virginia state flower. (WVU Photo/Brian Persinger)

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For most, a forest is defined by its towering canopy and dense underbrush. But for Hannah DeHetre, a doctoral candidate in biology at West Virginia University, the real story lies beneath her boots.

Off campus, she's a crafting enthusiast, cat mom to three Taylor Swift-named felines, and a true Mountaineer at heart - DeHetre brought her family from Michigan to the Mountain State when she tied the knot in Grafton in a ceremony complete with local Grafton Monster-themed candles.

Out in the woods, however, she zeroes in on the subterranean world that determines a forest's health.

"The soil is the foundation of the forest," DeHetre explained. "Without soil that can support the trees, there is no forest. It holds the nutrients, holds the landscape, and dictates what can grow there. It's the very bottom building block of everything."

Hannah DeHetre, a fifth-year doctoral student in the WVU Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, and doctoral candidate in biology (Submitted photo)

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A fifth-year doctoral student in the WVU Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, DeHetre never saw herself as a scholar when she was an undergraduate student, and never imagined herself as a doctoral researcher.

"I didn't want to do any research because I was like, 'I'm not going to do a PhD,'" she said as she began her master's degree at the University of Michigan in 2020.

Then she taught an undergraduate course in tree identification.

" It was the best experience ever - getting to teach college students something so important to me, and seeing them get so into it," DeHetre said. "I realized, 'I think I love teaching college students.'"

DeHetre studies the biology of woodland soil because she said she believes a forest's health depends on its foundation. (WVU Photo/Brian Persinger)

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After a friend pointed out that being a professor combines research and teaching, she geared up to pursue a doctoral degree Seeking hands-on experience, she volunteered in a microbiology lab to test the waters and quickly discovered a love for asking questions no one had answered.

Hooked on scientific inquiry, she emailed nearly 50 professors across the country before finding a research home in 2022 in the lab of WVU ecologist Edward Brzostek , where she studies soil organic matter, carbon stability, and how forests interact with climate change.

To understand where carbon in the soil goes, DeHetre spends a lot of time performing "soil fractionation." Using test tubes, she shakes and breaks down soil clumps into two different kinds of carbon pools: stable carbon stored underground for the long term, and carbon that microbes can easily decompose, releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

The process gives her a glimpse into how plant systems influence the earth beneath them. That information, she said, can improve predictive climate models.

During the aspiration part of the fractionation process of her research methods, DeHetre attempts to capture the light particulates floating at the top of the liquid. (Submitted Photo)

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Her findings indicate that one form of carbon long assumed to be stable may actually cycle through soils much more quickly than current climate models account for. And her research coincides with an ongoing debate in soil science: whether roots accelerate or decelerate decomposition.

While some biologists suggest roots inhibit decay by outcompeting microbes for nutrients, others argue they "prime" microbes to decompose organic matter faster.

"We've got this beautiful ball of soil, but how much of that soil is stable versus able to be decomposed by microbes?" she said. "When microbes decompose carbon in the soil, they release CO2 into the atmosphere. We care about that in terms of climate change."

In DeHetre's lab sit baseline soil samples that are dried and ready for fractionation. (Submitted Photo)

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DeHetre's work shows that the truth is highly dynamic, depending on environmental factors and the stability of different carbon pools.

In summer 2026, DeHetre embarked on back-to-back research fellowships, first at the Morton Arboretum near Chicago and then at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, where her work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science Graduate Student Research award.

"I chose Oak Ridge because it's in an ecosystem that I love. I'm very big about the trees, so I need to know the trees, and I like being in Appalachia," DeHetre said.

At Oak Ridge, DeHetre pivoted from dirt to digital, temporarily trading in physical field experiments for advanced computational modeling and using ORNL's supercomputers to develop a machine-learning soil carbon emulator that will test assumptions about how carbon moves through forest soils.

"It's crazy and absolutely wild," DeHetre said. "It's going to give me incredible technical skills and amazing connections."

Reframing her mindset around research has been transformational, she added.

DeHetre's cores are installed in this "monoculture" forestry plot dominated by C. pisifera, the Sawara cypress tree. (Submitted Photo)

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"Graduate school is so different from undergraduate. It's getting your brain into that research space. It's not about knowing everything. You can't know everything - that's why we're doing research. It's about asking questions."

For DeHetre, every unexpected result becomes another mystery to solve, another rabbit hole to follow. As a professor, that sense of curiosity is what she said she hopes to pass on to students.

"I want to teach undergraduates how to do research, how to write papers, and take them to conferences," she said. "I want to show them what grad school is before they go, because that would have been so helpful for me."

For undergraduate students who, like her, felt intimidated by the "black box" of academia, DeHetre has advice: "Get in a lab, volunteer, do work-study, whatever you can. Talk to the graduate students, and you'll realize they're just humans. Meeting people and asking questions is where it all starts."

-WVU-