Geospatial science major finds her place through Honors College, research and internships

Kayla Fields grew up 10 minutes from the York River and about a 20-minute drive from Chesapeake Bay.

She often visited the bay on school field trips, meeting scientists who studied the water quality and the bay's inhabitants. She didn't know it as a school kid, but those educational trips were informing her future.

By the time she enrolled at Radford University, Fields was already "super interested" in learning more about water quality and how research in that field can generate awareness and improve the quality of life of communities.

As a freshman in the university's Elevate Research program, Fields met Naveen Joseph, an assistant professor of geospatial and earth sciences, and began working with him on a watershed study of the Chesapeake Bay. "I know it's highly susceptible to water quality degradation," the junior geospatial science major from Yorktown, Virginia, said, "so, I was curious to know why and learn more about the importance of the issues there."

Fields began her work exploring how nitrates group in the bay, "what their patterns are, spatially and temporally," she explained. Fields also pored over data from a 40-year period from 1980 to 2020 to discover where and why nitrate levels were the highest. During the fall 2025 semester, Fields examined how land use may cause higher concentrations of nitrates in Chesapeake Bay.

"So far, I've found that agriculture affects water quality more than urbanization does," Fields said. "This is primarily due to fertilizer use." She also found higher nitrates and lower water quality in the Susquehanna River region, "another area with higher agricultural practices," Fields noted.

Through the year and a half she's been working on the project, Joseph has been there to help. "He's helped me tremendously," Fields said emphatically.

Joseph is an expert in using geospatial datasets, statistical tools and hydrological models to address water resources issues both at regional and nationwide scales. His research themes include large-scale and catchment-scale water resources modeling and investigating the relationships between environmental contaminants, such as pesticides, and human health outcomes, such as cancer.

Joseph's work with Fields has given the Honors College student confidence, she said, to explore her research ideas and share her work with other academic communities.

Plus, "he encourages me to go to conferences and present my research, and that's helped me grow tremendously as a student."

Late last year, Fields presented her work, "Assessing the impact of urbanization and climate change on water quality in the Chesapeake Bay watershed," at the American Water Resources Association (AWRA) Annual Conference, Nov. 10-12, 2025, in Westminster, Colorado. The conference "provided an opportunity," she said, "for me to connect with and learn about the work of other researchers and industry professionals." Joseph and three other Radford students also presented at the conference.

Earlier in 2025, Fields, Joseph and Annelise Britton '25 showcased their work at the AWRA spring conference in Anchorage, Alaska. There, Fields won first prize, and Britton won runner-up for best student oral presentations.

"Dr. Joseph and [Honors College Director] Dr. [Niels] Christensen have definitely helped me with my confidence and have helped me achieve a lot of things here at Radford," she said.

One accomplishment Fields is particularly proud of is completing an internship in the summer of 2025 with Northern Star Resources at a gold mine in Alaska. There, she worked as a surveyor, measuring the mine's path to ensure it stayed on course with the engineer's design plans, she explained.

It was an "exciting experience that allowed me to apply what I've learned in the classroom to real-world scenarios," Fields said in August, soon after the internship ended. "It was interesting to adapt spatial analysis techniques typically used for surface mapping to underground environments where satellite data isn't available."

Her numerous experiences - the course, her research and presentations, internships and strong bonds with her professors - have helped Fields find her place at Radford.

"Everything has allowed me to succeed through opening many doors and creating strong connections," she said. "Radford made it very easy for me to find my place here."