Her current project focuses on the impacts of discharge from coal ash basins into lotic environments. She will be using an indicator organism, Corbicula fluminea, to determine contaminant uptake, growth, and stress responses downstream of the point source. Her next steps include a comprehensive examination of the food web response downstream of the point source inputs.

After receiving a B.S. from Washington University, Gretchen spent a year serving in an AmeriCorps program based in St. Louis, Missouri. Through the program, she had diverse experiences including fighting forest fires, tornado and ice storm recovery efforts, and teaching in local education programs. She then received a master of public health in environmental health from Columbia University. While at Columbia, she studied the relationship between drinking water concentrations of arsenic and prevalence of diabetes in participants of a larger cohort study in Bangladesh. Through her current research at UGA, she seeks to integrate ecological concepts and perspectives with public health.