Amorina Lee-Martinez completed her PhD in Environmental Studies with Dr. Patty Limerick in July 2022. Her dissertation is entitled: What’s Beneath the Surface Tension?: A case study of changing populations and watershed management in the Dolores River region, Colorado. Born and raised in the Four Corners region of Southwest Colorado, Amorina’s scholarly interests revolve around the Dolores River, a tributary of the Colorado River originating in the mountains near her home. She has been researching the Colorado River since writing her Honors Thesis about the 2014 pulse flow at the Delta as an undergraduate at CU.

Summer of 2019, Amorina participated in the Sesquicentennial Colorado River Exploring Expedition (SCREE), the 150th anniversary river trip of John Wesley Powell’s first expedition exploring the Green and Colorado Rivers. Amorina is also a contributing author to the associated SCREE publication entitled Vision and Place: John Wesley Powell and Re-imagining the Colorado River Basin, 2020.

Amorina’s long-term goal is to be involved in her home-community efforts to sustain water resources for multiple needs, and to help prepare for increasingly arid conditions in the Dolores River region. Her historical investigation aims to inform how to create a sustainable future for water management in the headwaters of the Colorado River.