Bopi Biddanda’s findings on the science of sinkholes that was published in the Journal of Great Lakes Research was featured on GVSU’s landing page https://www.gvsu.edu on February 10, 2023.

Bopi Biddanda attended the NASA-MSGC Panel at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on February 16^th – 17^th. Bopi is GVSU’s affiliate representative to MSGC and serves on the MSGC Executive Board.

Christina Catanese attended the Groundswell Advisory Council meeting on February 9^th.

Christina Catanese attended the Arts at Field Stations and Marine Labs (FSMLs) working group meeting on February 14^th.

Christina Catanese attended the Groundswell Professional Development Committee meeting on February 21^st.

Christina Catanese announced that the annual reporting for Michigan Project WET, which is housed at AWRI, was completed. In 2022, Michigan Project WET trained 69 educators and 2 facilitators, reaching an estimated 8,370 students to advance water education with the goal of building an understanding of global challenges and inspiring local solutions.

Sarah Hamsher will be teaching an algae field course as part of an NSF sponsored project in Colorado from July 9^th – 23^rd.

Sarah Hamsher is on a postdoc search committee as part of the NSF Rhopalodiales project.

Sarah Hamsher reviewed articles for the Luigi Provasoli Award as part of her service to the Phycological Society of America’s Editorial Board. The Luigi Provasoli Award is presented annually to the author(s) of the three, or fewer, outstanding papers published in the Journal of Phycology during the previous calendar year.

Mark Luttenton is working with the Upper Midwest office of the USGS to conduct nutrient analysis on water samples collected from Torch Lake.

Mark Luttenton met with Ginger Rohwer from the MiSTEM program regarding possible education opportunities that might fit the AWRI educational mission.

Mark Luttenton met with staff from the USGS Lansing and Grayling offices regarding potential studies of groundwater in the Higgins Lake watershed.

Mark Luttenton and Eric Snyder (GVSU Biology Department) talked to the Executive Director of Indian Trails Camp about conducting a study of a small lake on the property. This would be a collaboration with the Occupational Therapy MS program.

Mark Luttenton provided tours of the AWRI facilities for the candidates being interviewed for the faculty position in Biology.

Jim McNair is hosting weekly Zoom meetings for the “Inland Lakes Group” of the Michigan Network for Environmental Health and Technology. The meetings are focused on expansion of an existing data set of bivariate qPCR and Colilert-18 E. coli concentrations to include beach monitoring data for 2021 and 2022. The expanded data set will be used to determine why Michigan’s proposed qPCR-based decision threshold for beach notifications (advisories or closings) performs poorly for certain beaches and sampling dates.

Charlyn Partridge met with the Kalamazoo River Sturgeon working group to discuss the summer plans for that project.

Charlyn Partridge had a meeting with Alex Wieten and Jason Lorenz from the Gun Lake Tribe on to discuss their continued work on wild rice and sturgeon populations for the summer.

Charlyn Partridge has registered for the 1^st annual International eDNA meeting through the eDNA Society in Otsu, Japan in May.  

Charlyn Partridge continues to attend weekly meetings to discuss the COVID wastewater project and the summer beach sampling project.

Charlyn Partridge is a member of the University Research and Development Committee.  

Charlyn Partridge attended a Michigan Lakes and Streams Board of Directors Meeting. The group is working to update their strategic plan.

Charlyn Partridge was chair of the CLAS Cluster hire for AWRI.

Rick Rediske will be offering the Plankton Algae class for EGLE on July 18^th – 20^th.

Carl Ruetz met with Shaun Nethercott to discuss background on lake sturgeon for an episode of the Great Lakes Odyssey Radio Hour.

Carl Ruetz had an abstract accepted to the Society for Freshwater Science conference, being held June 3 -7, 2023, in Australia. The title is: Fish use of freshwater river mouths in Lake Michigan, USA. Tyler Hoyt, Carl’s current graduate assistant, and Megan Mader, Carl’s past graduate assistant, are co-authors.

Carl Ruetz met with staff from Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks to discuss issues associated with abundance estimation of stream salmonids.

Al Steinman continues to serve on the following boards:  Alliance for the Great Lakes, Goodwill, and West Michigan Symphony.  He attends meetings regularly throughout the month.

Al Steinman met with a group from the Michigan Maritime Museum in South Haven.

Al Steinman attended virtually the BeBot group kick-off for the 2023 season.

Al Steinman meets with the Great Lakes Advisory Board, every 2 weeks.

Al Steinman met with a group from True Elements on February 13^th.

Al Steinman attended the International Joint Commission’s valuation work group meeting on February 16^th.

Al Steinman met with Doug Kindschi, the former GVSU Dean of the Science and Mathematics Department, on February 20^th.

Al Steinman has had various meetings throughout the month with GVSU University Development.

Kevin Strychar attended the Michigan Agriculture conference held in East Lansing on February 2^nd.

Sean Woznicki served on the BIO cluster hire search committee.

Sean Woznicki is serving as a search committee member for AWRI Executive Director position.

Sean Woznicki is serving on the Biology Department Graduate Program Committee and assisted in review of graduate applications for five teaching assistant positions.