Undergraduate Water Science Communication Fellowship Presentations
Friday, April 12, 2024
The Grand Challenge Water Science Communication Fellowship pairs undergraduate students with research mentors who study water science to develop a communications project based on the mentor’s research
2024 Fellowship Organizing Team
Dr. Anjali Mulchandani
Kamryn Zachek
Sydney Donohue
Thank you to our sponsors and supporters:
UNM ARID Institute (formerly the Grand Challenge for Sustainable Water Resources)
UNM Center for Water and the Environment
UNM Undergraduate Research Arts and Design Network
Dr. Roger Jones
In 2015, the Gold King Mine Spill caused a release of toxic wastewater into the Animas River watershed, spilling 3 million US gallons of mine water containing heavy metals like zinc, iron, copper, and beryllium into the Animas River. This mine spill affected the waterways of states like Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and the Navajo Nation. Mr. Olivera, a graduate student pursuing his master’s in agricultural engineering at UNM, is conducting research to address the enduring pollution impacts stemming from past mining activities in the region. The aim of his study is to investigate the role of microorganisms in metal release in the river. His experiments simulate relevant environmental conditions in the river, such as redox, pH, and food, which he provides as pure acetate to feed the microorganisms. He evaluates how these variables impact the microbial community and their metal release. The results of his research would show how those microorganisms can be impacted to better inform bioremediation strategies.
For my Grand Water Challenge communication project, I will present a diorama and a short slideshow about Mr. Olivera’s current research on the microbial community. The results of the study could halt the release of metals into the river by microorganisms, thereby aiding the animals inhabiting the river and the citizens who rely on it for drinking and farming. The diorama will visually depict the river in its original state, transitioning to the orange hue it has acquired due to mining activity.
Tiwalola Anawo
Major: Biological Anthropology
Mentor: Raphael Oliveira
Exposing the Chemical drivers in
Animas Rivers Restoration
Roselynn Padilla
Major: Liberal Arts
Mentor: Dr. joni m. palmer and Sydney Donohue
In 2016, nearly 1.7 million workers were directly involved in designing, constructing, operating, and governing U.S. water infrastructure. Water infrastructure spans many different man-made and natural systems that supply, treat, and conserve water. The U.S.’s continues growth, communities are struggling to translate this growth into more equitable and inclusive employment opportunities, while much of the nations water infrastructure is in urgent need of repair, maintenance, and restoration. My mentors, Joni Palmer and Sydney Donohue, have been exploring some of the hurdles that water workers and employers are facing when trying to fill these positions, as well as the lack of diversity within the workerforce, including education, gender, race, and age. They have also been looking at how we can educate people about jobs/careers in the workforce. Findings discovered that almost 3 million workers will need to be replaced over the next decade due to retirement and other employment shifts, like retirements and career changes. With this communication project, I hope to take these findings and implement them into a way that can advance the conversation about water sector employment opportunities for a younger demographic in an experiential way. Specifically, I will work with middle school science classes in a tactile learning lesson that will be able to broaden their understanding of what the water workforce is and who fills in those roles. I hope it gets implemented in schools around Albuquerque so that I can analyze and understand the students’ knowledge on these issues and further the research that has already been done.
Water Works: Fostering Diversity and Interest in U.S. Water Infrastructure Careers through Middle School Education
Wildfires pose a significant challenge in the United States, with far-reaching environmental consequences. Among these repercussions, the effects on local rivers stand out prominently. Wildfires unleash a spectrum of impacts on communities, from the contamination of drinking water sources to disruptions in agricultural practices. Accessing comprehensive data regarding the impact of wildfires on rivers has historically presented a formidable challenge.
Until recently, understanding wildfire’s impacts on rivers has been difficult due to data limitations. However, the advent of in-situ sensor technology has emerged as a transformative tool for investigating these effects. The transition towards sensor-based monitoring signifies a pivotal advancement, enabling a deeper comprehension of post-wildfire river dynamics.
To raise awareness about the critical importance of this issue, I am producing a video showcasing a researcher's (Paige Tunby) efforts in harnessing sensor technology to gather relevant data in New Mexico, Albuquerque, on the Hermit’s Peak – Calf Canyon wildfire. I hope that by shedding light on these impacts, communities can better appreciate the significance of proactive measures in safeguarding our natural resources.
The significance of this research cannot be overstated. Through a comprehensive evaluation of wildfire consequences on fluvial systems, we can formulate more effective mitigation strategies for managing their aftermath. Understanding the scale and breadth of these impacts empowers us to swiftly implement targeted interventions, thereby boosting the resilience of river ecosystems and the communities reliant upon them.
Impact of Wildfires on Rivers in New Mexico
Elena Finnegan
Major: Community & Regional Planning
Mentor: Heather Himmelberger and Dr. joni m. palmer
In an increasingly disconnected world, it is vital for us to create systems that integrate various aspects of watershed management, such as wastewater treatment, stormwater runoff, and habitat preservation. An example of a green infrastructure system like this is the Harvey Jones Channel Improvement Project in Corrales, New Mexico. The Harvey Jones Project was created by a coalition of non-profit organizations and government agencies in the region. The newly constructed channels route treated wastewater from the city of Rio Rancho through the bosque ecosystem and to the Rio Grande. The goals of the Harvey Jones Project are to prevent flooding, purify water, and restore roughly 10 acres of wildlife habitat. My communication project takes the information I have learned and puts it together into a zine to share my findings with the community. The zine explains the ecological functions of the Harvey Jones site and the habitat restoration it provides, as well as lessons that can be applied to future green infrastructure projects.
The Future of Green Water Infrastructure
In our air, different contaminants exist known as particulate matter. These particles can be categorized as organics, inorganics, or pathogens, and can be found throughout the air in our cities and urban areas from sources such as factories, farms, and other industries. Particulate matter in the air can cause adverse health effects, depending on the contaminant. Atmospheric water harvesting is the process of taking water from the air, also known as water vapor, via machines to be used as drinking water. The risks associated with atmospheric water harvesting include the presence of these particles in water. Because there has not been much research regarding the water quality of atmospheric water harvesting, the risk must be considered regarding contaminants in untreated water collected from atmospheric water harvesting. For this communication project, I am making multiple figures for a research paper showing the process of atmospheric water harvesting and the risks associated with it. Using these four figures to relay this data would be beneficial because as this technology is further developed and eventually used as another source of drinking water, the water harvested will have different contaminants than water from surface or groundwater sources and must be treated as such. Different testing methods will have to be developed, and more policies must be put into place in order to ensure that people will have safe and clean water to drink.
Paris Eisenman
Major: Civil Engineering
Mentors: Dr. Anjali Mulchandani, Constanza Kremer and Matthew Russell
Mechanics and Risks of
Atmospheric Water Harvesting
Quyen Le
Major: Chemical Engineering
Mentor: Dr. Allyson McGaughey
Water scarcity remains a significant challenge in various parts of the world. To address the issue of limited water resources, water providers are exploring ways to treat and reuse water from industrial processes and municipal wastewater. Membrane distillation (MD) is a water purification technique that utilizes a membrane to separate water from contaminants. This process uses the differences in vapor pressure across the membrane, allowing water vapor to pass through while rejecting dissolved solids and other impurities. MD can treat wastewater with high salt concentrations and complex contaminants, enabling treated water to be put back into use. MD has been demonstrated in Dr. McGaughey’s research to be an efficient method for treating high-concentration waste streams and achieving complete rejection of nonvolatile solutes if membrane properties are carefully controlled. Additionally, this method is also efficient because of its relatively low capital/operating costs and ability to utilize low-grade “waste” heat and solar thermal energy, making it a promising solution for sustainable water management. For this communication project, I am creating an animated video and infographic about the membrane distillation process for those interested in this topic within the research community. This animation can be used to communicate MD and its application in wastewater treatment on research websites and during the UROC. This project aims to simplify and communicate complex scientific concepts related to MD to a broad academic and general audience, encouraging support for sustainable water management practices and inspiring future research and innovation in the field.
Addressing water scarcity using membrane distillation technique to purify existing wastewater resources
Dana Awad
Major: Chemical Engineering
Mentor: Dr. Allyson McGaughey
Lack of clean water is a challenging issue that people worldwide are suffering from. To increase clean water access, many techniques and technologies have been developed to extract clean water from contaminated streams, and membrane separation processes are critical for advanced water treatment applications. While many infographics have been developed to compare pressure-driven membrane processes, they do not include emerging processes that are currently being investigated by researchers. In this project, I develop an infographic that describes conventional and advanced membrane separation processes for use by water treatment plant operators and engineers who are new to the field of membrane separations. I categorize membrane processes in terms of their applicability to specific source waters, their ability to remove key contaminants, their relevance at different scales, and their energy efficiency and sustainability. This infographic communicates research results and technical information to engineers and other professionals in the water treatment industry in an interactive, creative, and meaningful way.
Through this fellowship, I want to introduce advanced membrane processes, what they are used for, the recent developments in these technologies, and how they compare for water treatment applications. In my infographic I will have two written sections; one that will be divided into figures and writing that compares advanced membrane processes using charts and tables. I will also have a section that focuses on membrane distillation, discussing briefly what membrane distillation is and its applications.
An Infographic to Introduce Conventional and Advanced Membrane Processes and Applications
Carmen Atchley
Civil Engineering
Mentors: Dr. Anjali Mulchandani and Matt Russell
In the case of natural disasters in rural communities, traditional methods of providing people with water, like municipal water sources or trucking in water, are unsustainable and often regarded as an afterthought. Solutions being created in the atmospheric harvesting water lab seek to address these issues. In the atmospheric water harvesting lab, researchers use dehumidifiers to remove water from the atmosphere, filter it, and test it for practical uses. My creative input may be in the form of making a stylistically fun and simple infographic to present this information. Part of the infographic will discuss water scarcity, climate change in New Mexico (especially rural areas), and threats that urbanization poses to the climate. In another part, I will communicate the various objectives from the atmospheric water lab, including air monitoring, water harvesting, and drinking water solutions. I hope to educate people about this work in a way that seems approachable and engaging, while also underlining the severity that climate change poses to water resources, and why we must work toward solutions.
Climate Change in New Mexican Communities, and Solution Created by Atmospheric Water Harvesting
Justin Spitz
Major: Medical Lab Science
Mentor: Dr. Heidi Honegger Rogers
Access to clean water is a basic human right. Without access to sustainable quality water infrastructure, rural communities in New Mexico will continue to experience harmful health effects, as well as social and economic injustices. It is important for health care professionals to understand the challenges that rural communities face in regards to water infrastructure, and sufficient high quality water supplies. For my communication project, I will be making educational materials about water access, water quality, and water justice for nursing and other health professional students in three courses that Dr. Heidi Honegger Rogers teaches in the UNM College of Nursing. The goal of this communication project will be to educate the next generation of health professionals on water infrastructure issues and water shortages in New Mexico. While also linking water quality/safety and access to health issues and illness that nurses and other health professionals need to understand. My education materials will highlight illnesses that can be contracted like giardia, cyanobacteria, etc. and will direct health professionals to tools and testing needed to diagnose, treat, and prevent health harms from contaminated water. These health professionals will: gain a broad understanding of water problems, learn strategies to prevent harmful health effects from poor quality water, and be directed to resources and tools to diagnose and treat common water quality diseases. This project will exemplify the importance of transdisciplinary communication and partnership between environmental studies and health professions using the Planetary Health Education Framework. In addition, it will highlight the strategies for policy and practice innovation to improve health outcomes for rural communities.
Water Science for Healthcare Professionals
Abigail Castro
Major: Economics
Mentor: Dr. Heidi Honegger Rogers
There are various global issues involving the sustainability of water, therefore the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs created Water Sustainable Goal 6. Goal 6 stresses the need for safer drinking water, managed sanitation, water sustainability, and concludes with goals for all consumers of water to reach. The concerns that Goal 6 attempts to address, would only increase if consumers of water are not provided a resource that addresses a way for themselves to improve their water usage. My mentor, Dr. Heidi Honegger Rogers, focuses her own research on health equity, equity and justice, and planetary health at the College of Nursing. To branch off her research, I will be creating a poster that showcases the Raworth Model and how it would assist in solving the issues presented in Goal 6. The Raworth Economics Model from Doughnut Economics provides a possible solution for these water concerns by emphasizing how we can utilize social foundation to create a safe ecological space for everyone. The Doughnut is a practical model that obtains two layers. The inner layer reveals what many are globally falling short of, and the outer layer represents a region we cannot be “overshooting” due to ecological reasoning. There will be greater focus on New Mexico, as the state is undergoing water concerns, and we are all consumers of it as residents here. If this model was to be utilized in the state of New Mexico, we would potentially see an increase in water sustainability, management, and sanitation. Overall, we can move together in the community to gain responsible stewardship in water innovation and sustainability if everyone was to utilize the Raworth Model to battle water issues.
Addressing Goal 6 Water Concerns with Doughnut Economics
The Santa Fe Municipal Watershed (SFMW) is of both great ecological and economic importance, providing 20-40% of Santa Fe’s water supply. However, due to a long history of fire suppression, the wilderness surrounding the SFMW is at high risk of a severe forest fire. If a wildfire were to happen, the ecosystem would lose large swaths of vegetative cover, become more prone to erosion, and significantly alter the water chemistry and overall quality, all of which would take the forest decades to recover from. Drought conditions in the Southwest are also projected to increase with climate change, making it necessary for existing water resources to remain viable. My mentor William Mejia’s research collects high quality data across 20 sites of the watershed’s streams to better understand how the system works for the SFMW’s management to create new maintenance strategies. His research will determine which streams contribute the best quality and nutrients to the main branch of the river further downstream and should take priority in protective efforts. This data will also be used to understand how other streams in the Southwest operate for even wider-spanning results.
My project aims to create a sculpture of the SFMW highlighting the connections between the water, land, and people. My sculpture will follow the same flow as the river to demonstrate how streams are affected by the surrounding land and how everything upstream accumulates downstream. My goal is to view land and water activism as inseparable and to encourage active groups into working together. The second goal of my project was to spread awareness of a vital resource that is easily underappreciated. In my sculpture water pours from the river out of a faucet, to reconnect participants with the source of their water.
Harmony Martinez
Major: Biology
Mentor: William Mejia
Flow to Faucet:
Studying Southwestern arid stream systems through the Santa Fe Municipal Watershed
Kenya Hernandez
Major: Chemical Engineering
Mentors: Maycee Hurd and Sydney Donohue Jobe
As plastic manufacturing continues to impact the world, it’s important that we become wary of how plastic waste (microplastics) is impacting the environment and even our bodies. As a rural community, the Crow Reservation of Montana has faced issues with direct access to solid waste management. As a result, they have begun to implement uncontrolled waste incineration, or more simply known as burn pits. Naturally, when communities begin to burn their waste, we find fragments of the contents left in the soil, air, and water that are within proximity. The contents of waste left in the environment will further release more harmful contaminants. With these contaminants left in the environment, we can conclude that microplastics are circling into our own body systems.
Maycee Hurd’s Research focuses on analyzing how the uncontrolled waste incineration contributes to microplastics found in the Crow community. Hurd takes samples of the most commonly used plastics and incinerates them. Once melted, she analyzes how the chemical composition of the waste changed, which allows us to predict how it may affect the environment in the future. As of recent, she has found that the microplastics left in the environment after burning will release plastic monomers, additives, and other incineration products, all of which are harmful contaminants. Microplastics in contact with direct sunlight were found to release these contaminants at a faster rate.
My communication piece is a sculpture of the human body made of Styrofoam, a commonly used plastic. The piece will show the audiences how microplastics are entering our bodies and affecting organic hormonal/circulation cycles. As plastic waste continues to enter our environment, it will continue to build up in our bodies.
Plastic - A Part of You
Hurd, M. et. al, (2023), Microplastic Leaching
Elena Rosales
Major: Biology, Sustainability Studies
Mentor: Alex Webster
Rivers play an essential role in the land to ocean aquatic continuum (LOAC) of the global carbon cycle in the sequestration of carbon. This system is being influenced by human activities and the effects of climate change. This project will elucidate the work being done by Dr. Alex Webster et al. to understand how our changing bosque ecosystem is affecting the carbon cycle. Three main approaches — ground wells, surveys across BEMP sites and an eddy covariance device—will be used to cultivate a deeper understanding of how dissolved organic carbon interacts with the ecosystem. Floodplains are a dynamic component of carbon systems, storing a significant portion of terrestrial carbon acting as semi permanent sediment sinks. Historically, the Rio Grande system is reliant on natural events such as flooding which have been significantly altered via human intervention to control the river channel, the effects of which are being exacerbated by climate change. Despite the importance of understanding the indispensable role of rivers and floodplains in the LOAC, there has been previously little research conducted. To properly convey the complexity of Dr. Webster's research and educate a wider audience, I will utilize a podcast, a vastly growing media source, as well as a multi-medium cover image that will creatively encapsulate the changing bosque ecosystem.
Local Carbon Interactions
Exploring biogeochemical research in the Bosque ecosystem
Diego Salazar
Major: Environmental Science
Mentor: Laura Crossey
For cities and governments to make informed decisions regarding water use and public health there must be an understanding of ecosystem behavior and health over long periods of time. Long term ecological research at a site provides critical information about ecosystem function, provides training and experience for many graduate and undergraduate students, and makes scientific research publicly available. The Rio Calaveras research site in northern New Mexico was used for over a decade and has a large body of work that has come from it. The research done at the site by Laura Crossey, Clifford Dahm, Armand Groffman, and others covers a wide variety of geo-eco-hydrological processes in headwater streams. The work generally focused on hyporheic zone interactions, primary production, and energy transfer. These topics are important because hyporheic zone interactions dictate how contaminants and other substances travel between surface water and groundwater, and primary production/ energy transfer data shows us how healthy the ecosystem is overall. However, the work done at this site as of now is mostly only accessible to the scientific community. My work with Laura Crossey will present the hydro-ecological research done at the Rio Calaveras site in Northern New Mexico in the form of a website. The website will summarize research done and give an overview of the life cycle of the research site. The site is currently being decommissioned, which involves a cleanup project this Spring because this type of research requires a lot of physical infrastructure. My project will aim to educate the public on some of the research that has been done at the Rio Calaveras site and highlight how the site has been an important part of the careers of many scientists at various academic levels.
Long Term Ecological Research at Rio Calaveras
Ella Bodor Hatfield
Political Science
Dr. Jami Nuñez
Billions of people still suffer from water insecurity today. Water stress levels are likely to increase amidst a warming climate, particularly in already arid and water-insecure regions. Jami Nuñez, Tara Grillos, and Alan Zarchta (2021) conducted survey research in the dry corridor of Western Honduras to analyze one conservational community-based water management strategy: household water metering.
Household water metering is an emergent but contentious method of Community-Based Management being implemented in developing communities. As a pay-per-usage market-based approach, some argue water meters can be exclusionary, and rural communities have pushed back against its usage in areas such as Jordan, Brazil, Bolivia and Kenya. Nuñez et al. hypothesize, however, that the presence of procedural justice elements, such as community inclusion in the water management decision-making process, will increase approval ratings of water metering systems.
Nuñez et al. found that the presence of procedural justice elements in the decision-making process greatly improved community members’ approval of water metering practices, as well as the metering projects’ efficiency and sustainability. These findings indicate two conclusions: first, water metering systems could be an instrumental method of climate-adaptive water resource management when used alongside procedural justice; second, a greater focus on procedural justice could greatly improve other mechanisms of community-based water management, and should be central to emerging water and natural resource sustainability initiatives.
How Procedural Justice Improves Community-Based Water Management Practices: Studies from Honduras