Standing in the mud of a degraded salt marsh, wearing five layers of clothing under insulated chest waders with water up to your waist, in the middle of winter might not sound like part of a "dream job," but it's all in a day's work for Alison Stouffer '20.

Research-intensive biology and environmental science classes at Muhlenberg, along with a transformative study abroad experience, led Stouffer to her current position as a wetland biologist with the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control.

Essentially, Stouffer says, she is "a field scientist who goes out into Delaware's wetlands and studies their health and condition. My team works on a handful of projects that we're doing to help monitor and restore our state's wetlands."

Stouffer typically spends 80 percent of her time in the field and 20 percent in the office. And she has plenty of field: Delaware's small size and abundant wetlands — it's said that wherever you stand in the state, you're within a mile of a wetland — give her plenty to dive into and, as she wrote on LinkedIn, "continue my exploration of these unique habitats."

In the field, she'll travel by boat to a particular site to collect data on, for example, vegetation density or species richness. She and the other three members of her team in the Wetland Monitoring and Assessment Program also use innovative mapping technology to track wetland acreage and elevation over time.

A current restoration project involves the construction of a coconut core fiber containment wall around a mudflat that will be filled with dredge material from a river and planted with vegetation. Stouffer helps monitor the turbidity of the water to make sure that the material is not clouding out any fish or other species that are in the water during application.

Stouffer, who comes from a landlocked state (Colorado) but has traveled to all 50, knew she wanted to be in the marine sciences when she came to Muhlenberg but didn't know where to start. Her experiences helped point her in the right direction.

"I had so many opportunities to do research that I don't think I would've gotten at a larger school," she says. "And I really appreciated those opportunities because they showed me, one, that I love to do research, and two, that I love to be in the field. I think pretty much all of my experiences at Muhlenberg had some field component to them."

After learning about the scientific process and how to do data analysis, and learning that she didn't want to become a microbiologist, during the fall of her junior year Stouffer traveled throughout Panama, where she studied tropical and marine ecology.

"It was an 'aha' moment that I wanted to do marine sciences, but I wanted to do it with that human component where I was looking at the bigger picture," she says. "And at that point, I also transitioned from a biology major to an environmental science major."

Stouffer, who competed in track and field at Muhlenberg, earned her master of environmental management degree from Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment and began working for Delaware in August 2023.

"I've never been into politics or policy, but I want to be able to make a difference," she says. "So I am helping educate the public and doing what I can do on an individual level to help address larger climate problems. 

"I would say this is pretty much my dream job," she says. "This is exactly where I want to be and what I want to be doing."

"Made Mules" is a series that looks at recent Muhlenberg athletes who have achieved success following graduation.  Previous "Made Mules" profiles:
Joshua Barnett '21
Samantha Eynon '23
Brian Jamison '20