Geospatial science student’s research branches out to Zambia

As Kiara Bartloli waited for the ferry to carry her across the Chobe River, she watched a group of schoolkids walk off a bus and join her in line. There were about 30 to 50 of them talking and laughing, she recalled.

As Bartoli watched the children interact with each other, she developed a deeper understanding of her summer research trek in Zambia. The sometimes-grueling work of coring trees there and analyzing data meant more to her in this moment as she watched the future of this small sub-Saharan country playfully interact.

"It was such a cool moment when I was looking at these kids and thinking they deserve to live in a place where they can have fruitful, sustainable lives and not live in fear and have anxiety about droughts there," the Radford University junior said a couple of weeks after returning from Africa to her home in Charleston, West Virginia. "These are the people we get to help."

Bartoli visited Zambia for a month this summer, working alongside Radford Geospatial Science Professor Stockton Maxwell on a National Science Foundation-funded project aimed at reconstructing the history of precipitation in sub-Saharan Africa.

"In a region where agriculture is a key livelihood and hydropower is the dominant energy source," Maxwell explained, "our work will be critical to resource planning in the years to come."

The fieldwork involved traveling to remote regions of southern Zambia, including Kafue National Park, where visitors are likely to see elephants, giraffes and water buffalo.

For the first two weeks, Bartoli and Maxwell spent numerous hours coring and taking samples from guibourtia, brachystegia and julbernardia trees with plans to use their collected data to create the precipitation reconstruction "going back about 200 years," Bartoli said, "to determine if the drought Zambia and other surrounding countries are experiencing right now is related to climate change or if it's cyclical. We don't know because the data there does not go back that far."

The dynamic duo of Bartoli and Maxwell faced a few challenges along the way, like using brute force to twist increment bores into the hardwood trees - and having them break sometimes - ֪and the swarming bugs that had a taste for researchers. "We had to put toilet paper in our ears and our noses so they wouldn't crawl in," Bartoli said. "But it wasn't that bad, just a little inconvenient."

There was more to the trip than strenuous fieldwork for the researchers. Both attended the African Dendrochronology Field School, an annual event that attracts scholars from all around the world who want to learn about tree-ring science.

Maxwell co-organized the event and taught much of the material. In two years of experiential learning as a geospatial science major at Radford, Bartoli has already obtained much of the knowledge presented at the field school. "Everything we did there, I had done before," she said. "I've had exposure to it all at Radford in the Tree Ring Lab."

Some of the participants were so impressed with her knowledge of the topics that they began calling her Professor Kiara, she explained with a smile.

As if coring trees and field school were not enough to occupy their time in Zambia, the ever-busy Bartoli and Maxwell attended the World Dendro Conference in Livingstone, Zambia. Maxwell spoke at the conference, informing the gathering about his and Bartoli's work in Zambia and how he plans to use the collected data.

Bartoli communicated, through a poster and talk, her preliminary work on the precipitation reconstruction project. "It was really cool to have the opportunity to network with people at the conference," she said, "and get that experience as an undergraduate. I may have been the only undergraduate student there."

Now that the two are back at Radford with the start of the fall 2025 semester, Bartoli will work with Maxwell to process the data throughout the 2025-26 academic year. She received a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) grant from OURS, the Office of Undergraduate Research, for the summer work, and Maxwell hired her to work in the Tree-Ring Lab with funds from the National Science Foundation grant.

"We have all the cores from Zambia, and now we have to sand them and mount them in order to date them," Bartoli said, explaining the work ahead of her over the next several months. "Once they are accurately dated, we will examine climate data and focus on correlating tree growth with precipitation, and then we'll write the results in a paper for a scientific publication."

This project isn't the first time Bartoli and Maxwell have worked together. They were first paired during the first semester of Bartoli's freshman year through the Research Rookies program, which provides first-year Radford students with an opportunity to engage with faculty in unique research experiences and environments.

"He has taught me everything," she said. "He taught me dendrochronology, and he has taught me how to be a scientist."

Bartoli plans to use her knowledge to make her community a better place for everyone. "I grew up in Appalachia, and I want to give back to the people here," she explained before talking again about working to improve the lives of future generations, like the schoolchildren she observed in Zambia.

Radford, she said, is helping her find her way toward those ambitions.

"I genuinely enjoy being at Radford because my professors are so invested in my well-being, and they provide amazing opportunities to help me do all the things I want to accomplish," Bartoli said. "Without Dr. Maxwell, I would have not gone to Zambia. He went out of his way to make this opportunity something an undergraduate like me could experience. That speaks volumes about the amazing professors we have at Radford. They all want us all to do well, not just academically, but also in life."