AWRI Graduate Student Wins Awards

AWRI Graduate Student, Sarah Lamar, was recently the recipient of two awards through Grand Valley State University. Sarah received the 2019 Excellence in Discipline Award for the Biology Master’s Program. This award is given to students who have made significant contributions academically, to their unit, to the University, or to the Graduate Program.

Sarah also participated in and won the GVSU Graduate School’s 3-Minute Thesis (3MT) Competition with her presentation, "Biological Invasions on a Large Scale: Investigating the Spread of Baby's Breath (Gypsophila paniculata) Across North America". During this competition, students were given three minutes to present their research to a group of judges. With her win, Sarah represented Grand Valley in the Midwest Regional 3MT Competition that took place on March 22^nd in St. Louis, MO. Sarah advanced to the semi-final round.

Bopi Biddanda and Rick Rediske attended a Making Waves Initiative Meeting on the Allendale campus on March 28.

Sarah Hamsher organized and ran a Water Quality event at Science Olympiad held on GVSU’s Allendale campus on March 23^rd.

Rick Rediske attended the GVSU public meeting regarding Viant Medical emitting Ethylene Oxide at levels that were above ambient air quality standards, which was held at the Eberhard Center on March 6^th.  GVSU is working with the DEQ, and has hired a contractor to do additional monitoring as well.

Rick Rediske served on a panel for a meeting held for staff working at the School of Business on March 29^th concerning Ethylene Oxide emissions in the area.  

Carl Ruetz and Travis Ellens attended the annual project meeting for the Great Lakes Coastal Wetland Monitoring Program in Midland, Michigan on March 1^st.

Carl Ruetz attended meetings on the Making Waves Initiative at the Allendale campus on March 28 and 29.

Al Steinman was videotaped in Holland on March 20^th as part of a celebration of Outdoor Discovery Center’s 20^th Anniversary.

Al Steinman was on a Blue Economy Panel at the Lakeshore Museum Center on March 27^th.

Kevin Strychar and meteorologist Bill Steffen hosted a session on Climate Change at the Science Olympiad held on GVSU’s Allendale campus on March 23^rd.

Janet Vail traveled to NASA Langley in Hampton, Virginia on March 4^th – 6^th for the combined GLOBE U.S. Partner Forum meeting, GLOBE Protocol training, and GLOBE North American Regional Meeting.

AWRI staff are bolded, undergraduate students are denoted with a single asterisk*, graduate students are denoted with two asterisks**, and post-doc researchers are donated with three asterisks ***.

Publications

Emily Kindervater, former graduate student working with Al Steinman, and Al are co-authors on a paper covering her thesis research that has been accepted in Journal of American Water Resources Association:
Kindervater, E. and A.D. Steinman. In Press. Phosphorus retention in West Michigan two-stage agricultural ditches. Journal of American Water Resources Association.

Rick Rediske and Brian Scull are co-authors on two articles accepted to the journal Water Research.  The articles cover five years of research bringing the qPCR methods for beach monitoring into use by public health laboratories.
Sivaganesan, M., Aw, T.G., Briggs, S., Dreelin, E., Aslan, A., Dorevitch, S., Shrestha, A., Isaacs, N., Kinzelman, J., Kleinheinz, G., Noble, R., Rediske, R., Scull, B., Rosenberg, S., Weberman, B., Sivy, T., Southwell, B., Siefring, S., Oshima, K., and Haugland, R.  2019.  Standardized data quality acceptance criteria for a rapid Escherichia coli qPCR method (Draft Method C) for water quality monitoring at recreational beaches.  Water Research.  doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.watres.2019.03.011.

Aw, T.G., Sivaganesan, M., Briggs, S., Dreelin, E., Aslan, A., Dorevitch, S., Shrestha, A., Isaacs, N., Kinzelman, J., Kleinheinz, G., Noble, R., Rediske, R., Scull, B., Rosenberg, S., Weberman, B., Sivy, T., Southwell, B., Siefring, S., Oshima, K., and Haugland, R.  2019.  Evaluation of multiple laboratory performance and variability in analysis of recreational freshwaters by a rapid Escherichia coli qPCR method (Draft Method C).  Water Research.  doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.watres.2019.03.014.

Al Steinman is a co-author on a paper accepted to the journal Ecosphere:
Strayer, D.L., Adamovich, B.V., Adrian, R., Aldridge, D.C., Balogh, C.S., Burlakova, L.,  Tóth, L.G., Hetherington, A.L., Jones, T., Karatayev, A., Madill, J.B., Makarevich, O.A., Marsden, J.E., Martel, A.L., Minchin, D., Nalepa, T.F., Noordhuis, R., Fried-Petersen, H.,  Robinson, T.J., Rudstam, L.G., Schwalb, A.N., Smith, D.R., Steinman, A.D., and Jeschke, J.M. In Press.  Long-term population dynamics of zebra and quagga mussels (Dreissena polymorpha and D. rostriformis): a cross-system analysis. Ecosphere.

Al Steinman and Carl Ruetz are co-authors on a paper accepted in the journal Wetlands:
Uzarski, D.G., Wilcox, D.A., Brady, V.J., Cooper, M., Albert, D.A., Ciborowski, J., Danz, N., Garwood, A., Gathman, J., Gehring, T., Grabas, G., Howe, R., Johnson, L., Lamberti, G., Moerke, A., Niemi, G., Redder, T.,  Ruetz, C., Steinman, A.D., Tozer, D., and O'Donnell, K. In Press. Leveraging a landscape-level monitoring and assessment program for developing resilient shorelines throughout the Laurentian Great Lakes. Wetlands.

Presentations

(Presenter listed first)

Bopi Biddanda attended the annual meeting of the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) held in San Juan, Puerto Rico from February 23^rd - March 2^nd.  Bopi gave an oral presentation at the meeting.
Biddanda, B., R. Duff and A. Weinke**.  First Tango:  Day-night shift between photosynthesis and chemosynthesis driven by diel vertical migration of microbial mat communities in Lake Huron’s submerged sinkholes.

Bopi Biddanda and Janet Vail organized AWRI presentations for the annual “Spring Thaw” event held at Torresen Marine in Muskegon on March 9^th.  Jasmine Mancuso, graduate student working with Bopi, and Tom Jackson, vessel instructor, gave poster presentations about AWRI, the Muskegon Lake Buoy, and the D.J. Angus/W.G. Jackson vessel programs; they also shared resources with the public.

Molly Lane, graduate student working with Rick Rediske, presented a paper titled “Monitoring beaches with draft Method C and qPCR” at the Michigan Environmental Health Association’s annual conference in Battle Creek on March 21^st.   

Rick Rediske presented the results of his study of Big/Little Flower Creeks at a Flower Creek meeting held in Montague on March 12^th. 

Rick Rediske presented on “PFAS Issues in West Michigan” to the Advocates for Senior Issues group in Grand Rapids on March 15^th.

Rick Rediske was a guest lecturer for a GVSU course Public Health 520 about Environmental Health Concerns of PFAS on March 19^th and again on March 21^st.

Rick Rediske gave a presentation on “Community Participation” at a meeting at Rockford High School on March 26^th.  Previous to this meeting, Rick met with EPA in Rockford to discuss the meeting.

Carl Ruetz and Alan Mock, one of Carl’s current graduate students, attended the Michigan Fish and Wildlife Conference in Gaylord, Michigan on March 14^th – 15^th.  Alan gave an oral presentation about his research project at the conference.  The conference was a joint meeting between the Michigan Chapters of the American Fisheries Society and The Wildlife Society.
Mock, A.**, C.R. Ruetz III, D. Mays, and A. Martell.  Oral.  Evaluation of remote site incubators in three tributaries of the Manistee River. 

Al Steinman, along with GVSU faculty collaborators Sookkyung Cho, and Hannah Seidel, spoke about their collaboration “Raising Water Awareness Through Science, Music, and Dance” at the CLAS Colloquium on the Allendale campus on March 14^th.

Al Steinman and Darrel Donahue, Director of MSU’s Institute for Water Research, presented at the MSU Bioeconomy Institute in Holland on March 20^th.

Al Steinman presented to the C3 congregation on Great Lakes Restoration in Grand Haven on March 31^st.

Janet Vail and Amanda Syers, from GVSU College of Education, presented a workshop at the Michigan Science Teachers Association annual conference in Grand Rapids on March 1^st.  The title of their presentation was “Science/Math integration for a sustainable planet.”

Janet Vail presented a session at the Michigan Council for the Social Studies Conference in Holland on March 22^nd.  Her session was titled “A Creative curriculum for a crowded world.”

Janet Vail received a GVSU Sustainability Champion Award at the annual sustainability luncheon on the Allendale campus on March 22^nd.  

There were no new grants and contracts for this issue.  Check again next month!

“Flower Creek water study results to be shared at March 12th meeting”
Shoreline Media.net, March 4, 2019
Rick Rediske spoke about the results of his water study of Flower Creek at a meeting in Montague on March 12^th.
Also carried by Oceana’s Herald-Journal

“MSU and GVSU team up to tackle water issues
Shoreline Media.net, March 6, 2019
Al Steinman and Darrel Donahue (Director of MSU’s Institute of Water Research) met and gave a presentation on their programs and challenges facing Michigan’s freshwater.

“Living sustainably: study looks at improving Lake Macatawa health”
myZeeland, March 11, 2019
AWRI’s research on Lake Macatawa was discussed.
NewsEdge (online)

“Q & A: Richard Rediske, GVSU’s Annis Water Resources Institute”
MiBiz, March 17, 2019
Rick Rediske was interviewed regarding how PFAS clean-up has historically been accomplished, and how it is paid for.

“Lakeshore Museum Center wraps up ‘Collection by Color’ speaker series with discussion on lakes”
WKTV Journal, March 19, 2019
Al Steinman participated in a Blue Economy panel at an event at the Lakeshore Museum Center on March 27^th.

“A Collaborative research approach to preserving Michigan’s freshwater quality”
Bioeconomy Institute, Michigan State University, March 20, 2019
Al Steinman and Darrel Donahue (Director of MSU’s Institute of Water Research) met and gave a presentation on their programs and challenges facing Michigan’s freshwater.

“Sustainability Champions recognized”
GVNext, March 25, 2019
Janet Vail received a Sustainability Champion award from the GVSU Office of Sustainability Practices at a meeting held March 22nd on the Allendale campus.

“Meeting scheduled to discuss Viant Medical and air quality tests”
GVNext, March 25, 2019
Rick Rediske was one of the panelists for this meeting on March 29^th.

“Flower Creek survey shows manure getting into system”
Shoreline Media Group, March 25, 2019
Rick Rediske spoke about the results of his water study of Flower Creek at a meeting in Montague on March 12^th.

“Researcher says creek close to pig farm being built ‘very degraded’”
Muskegon Chronicle, March 26, 2019
Rick Rediske spoke about the results of his water study of Flower Creek at a meeting in Montague on March 12^th.
Also carried by NewsEdge (online)

“AWRI to host Lake Michigan offshore wind presentation”
GVNext, March 28, 2019
Jeff Kehne presented on deep-water offshore wind power for Michigan at AWRI on March 29^th.

LMC Events

Mar 14
The Grand Haven Chamber of Commerce held their “Lakeshore Youth Program” at the Lake Michigan Center.

Mar 22
Seminar Speaker: Dr. Jan-Michael Hessenauer, Fisheries Research Biologist with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, presented: “The Power of Long Term Assessments: Examples from DNR Inland and Great Lakes Research”

Mar 26
The Sustainable Muskegon Forum held an event at the Lake Michigan Center.

Mar 29
Special Presentation Speaker: Jeff Kehne, Chief Development Officer and General Counsel of Magellan Wind, presented: "Deep Water Offshore Wind Power for Michigan"