From Streams to Screens: The Person who Helps Empower Volunteer Stream Monitors with Data

The Water Action Volunteers (WAV) program relies on community-driven data collection to assess water quality across Wisconsin. Volunteers monitor water conditions at hundreds of sites, gathering essential data on parameters like temperature, dissolved oxygen, and pollutants. However, this vast dataset can be overwhelming to process and interpret without proper tools.

Ben Bradford, a researcher in the Department of Entomology at UW-Madison, has dedicated much of his career to bridging this gap between data and understanding. He combines his passion for programming, web design, and environmental science to create intuitive data visualizations that help volunteer monitoring programs make sense of their data. You are likely familiar with his work on WAV’s Stream Data Dashboard!

Ben’s academic background and personal interests have set him up for success in the field of data visualization. After earning his Master’s degree in Entomology at UW-Madison and a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from UC Davis, Ben worked at the USDA-ARS Aquatic Weed Research Lab in California. There, he honed his skills in water quality research, monitoring invasive species, and conducting field trials. He used his growing expertise in programming and statistical analysis to begin developing “R Shiny applications”—interactive data dashboards that provide visual insights into the environmental data being collected by volunteers.

When the WAV program manager (and also Ben’s spouse), Katy, joined the team, Ben recognized an opportunity to make stream data more accessible and useful. Initially, the WAV program provided monitoring data in PDF reports, but this system was cumbersome to update and limited in its ability to show trends or insights. Together with the WAV team, Ben developed the WAV Dashboard—an interactive platform that turns raw water quality data into visualizations that are easy to understand and share.

Ben helped to reach WAV’s goal of creating a more efficient, user-friendly way for volunteers to connect with the data they collect. Instead of navigating through years of reports, volunteers and community members can see the health of their local streams all at once.

For Ben, this process is as much about creativity as it is about science. He has always been passionate about programming and design and sees data visualization as a way to tell a story – it’s about helping people see patterns, identify changes, and understand the bigger picture.

Ben’s ongoing commitment to the WAV program comes from his deep connection to the work. “I put a lot of my heart into the projects I work on, and no project is ever done in my eyes, so there is still more work to be done to add more features to the dashboard” he says. Ben loves the collaborative aspect of working with the WAV team, and staff from the Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

WAV’s data dashboard has grown to benefit more than the program volunteers. We often receive feedback from conservation professionals that the dashboard is valuable to their work. “For me, when people use and appreciate a tool or website that I have worked on or developed, that brings me great joy,” Ben says. “I love the creative process of building applications like the WAV Dashboard, and I have enjoyed working with Katy, Emily, and DNR staff to do so.”

By making complex data more accessible and actionable, Ben is helping to ensure that the volunteers and organizations monitoring our streams can make data-informed decisions and take meaningful action to protect these vital ecosystems for future generations. He has also volunteered with WAV for baseline monitoring and Snapshot Day.

And most importantly, the fact about an entomologist with a passion for streams that we all want to know: Ben’s favorite macroinvertebrate is the caddisfly.