Caroline Tracey (PhD '22)'s new book, Salt Lakes: An Unnatural History, is a wide-ranging and deeply researched exploration of some of the planet’s most overlooked ecosystems.
Blending environmental reportage, cultural history, and memoir, Tracey’s book takes readers from the Great Salt Lake and California’s Mono Lake to Central Asia and beyond, tracing the fragile futures of saline lakes around the world. Drawing on years of fieldwork and travel, she documents how these landscapes—often dismissed as barren—are in fact ecologically rich and globally significant, supporting migratory bird populations and complex microbial life.
In a New York Times book review, Robert Sullivan highlights the book’s distinctive voice and interdisciplinary scope, noting how Tracey weaves together scientific insight with a personal narrative of movement, identity, and belonging, offering what has been described as both a “love letter” to these ecosystems and an urgent call to protect them.
Congrats to Dr. Tracey, whose work exemplifies the department’s commitment to engaged, globally attuned scholarship at the intersection of environment, society, and space.