Mack
White

Aquatic ecologist. Postdoctoral Research Scientist at The Ohio State University.

Smallmouth Buffalo from above. Drone footage by Mack White.

I study how fish move, what they eat, and what they leave behind, and how all of it is changing as rivers and coasts warm, dry out, and fill with invaders.

Mack White holding a clear viewer full of small stream fish

I work with Dr. Casey Pennock in the Aquatic Conservation & Ecology Lab at Ohio State, mostly in rivers of the Colorado River basin. Before that I earned my Ph.D. at Florida International University working in Everglades National Park. I'm currently looking for a permanent research and teaching position.

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Forested ridgelines fading into cloud

What I work on

Mack holding a Common Snook on a boat

Animal movement

Acoustic telemetry and spawning-run surveys to learn when, where, and why fish move, from Common Snook in the Everglades to sucker migrations in Appalachian streams.

Mack standing in a stream holding a sucker

Nutrients and food webs

How fish recycle and deliver nitrogen and phosphorus, and how diversity keeps that supply stable across ecosystems, including a 20-person LTER synthesis group I lead.

Mack lifting a large fish into a sampling boat on a muddy river

Rivers under global change

How flow loss, warming, and invasive species reshape native fish and aquatic insect communities in dryland rivers of the Colorado River basin.

See publications

From the field

How I got here

  1. 2025 to nowThe Ohio State University, postdoc. Flow loss, warming, and invasion in Colorado River basin rivers.
  2. 2021 to 2025Florida International University, Ph.D. Fish movement and nutrient dynamics in Everglades National Park.
  3. 2019 to 2021Tennessee Tech, M.S. Nutrients delivered by spawning sucker migrations.
  4. 2018ORSANCO, contract biologist. Fish surveys across the Ohio River basin.
  5. 2017Trout Unlimited & US Forest Service. Brook Trout stream restoration in West Virginia.
  6. 2013 to 2017Marshall University, B.S. Environmental Science.

Want to collaborate, or have a position I'd be a fit for?

white.3627@osu.edu