Category Archives: PROTECT Trainees

On June 18th, PROTECT Project 3 trainee Rebekah Nicholas took a trip to Butler Cave in Burnsville Cove, Virginia, with the purpose of collecting samples for research for her master’s thesis. Two Butler Cave Conservation Society members and one student grotto member joined her. Rebekah went into the cave needing two kinds of core samples. […]

PROTECT Project 2 postdoc Elana Elkin will transition to a new position as an Assistant Professor of Environmental Health at San Diego State University’s School of Public Health. Dr. Elkin’s new role will involve both teaching and research. She will teach and mentor graduate students in the Environmental Health Division of the school while she […]

On Wednesday, April 22nd it was announced that Project 2 Trainee Anthony Su was awarded the Eugene Feingold Excellence in Diversity Student Award for his commitment to expanding diversity and inclusion at the University of Michigan. Anthony is a doctoral student in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences within the UMICH School of Public health […]

On Monday, April 27th PROTECT Project 5 Trainee Shayan Hojabri received the Northeastern University College of Engineering Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award for his tireless efforts as a Teaching Assistant for the Geotechnical Engineering Lab, to update materials, implement an electronic collaborative and data sharing platform, and develop and implement contingency plans for online teaching. Shayan […]

Jill Riddell is a geology PhD Student at West Virginia University working on PROTECT Project 4, which focuses on tracing the passage of pollutants and other chemicals while it is transported through the Karst regions. Jill’s specific research, which is advised by Dr. Dorothy Vesper, focuses on evaluating polystyrene microspheres (small, hollow, sphere-shaped particles) as […]

PROTECT Collaborator and former trainee Dr. Kelly Ferguson recently won the 2018 NIEHS Mentor of the Year Award. Presented by the NIEHS Trainees Assembly (NTA), this award aims to honor an NIEHS scientist who has used training to support NIEHS fellows and trainees scientifically and personally. To qualify, a mentor could be a Principal Investigator, […]

 PROTECT welcomes Patrick Compton, a new PhD student at Northeastern University studying Civil Engineering with a concentration in Environmental and Water Systems. Patrick graduated from the Air Force Academy in 2013 with a BS in Environmental Engineering and spent the next five years on active duty as a Civil Engineering Officer. He has worked on […]

Norma I. Torres, PROTECT trainee at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez, has been selected to receive the Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, which aims to increase diversity in U.S. higher education faculty. The year-long fellowship is administered by the Fellowships Office of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Chosen out of over […]

PROTECT collaborator and former trainee, Dr. Kelly Ferguson, was recognized as one of “20 Pioneers Under 40 in Environmental Public Health” list. This list was released on Sept. 14 by the Collaborative on Health and the Environment (CHE). Kelly was also featured in Environmental Factor published by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) for this recognition. The […]

On March 22nd, 2017, PROTECT Visiting Scholar Wei Zhou was awarded a second place prize for a poster he presented at MIT Water Night, an event hosted annually by MIT Water Club. Each year, this event brings together researchers and industry professionals in the Boston area and provides them with a platform to present their […]

Kimberly Hetrick of PROTECT’s Project 5 has been selected to receive this year’s William L. Wilson Fellowship from the Karst Waters Institute (KWI).  The award comes with a $1000 honorarium as well as a personalized plaque. The honorarium and plaque were presented on Saturday, March 4 at the KWI Board of Director’s meeting in San […]

On March 27th, PROTECT Project 2 Trainee Elana Elkin  presented in a webinar hosted by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Superfund Research Program (SRP). The webinar was a part of an annual series which works to highlight the exceptional work of SRP trainee poster winners from their annual meetings. Elana Elkin’s poster, […]

On September 27th, 2016, PROTECT Project 4 trainees Vilda Rivera and Norma Torres presented at the 43rd International Association of Hydrogeologists (IAH) Congress in Montpellier, France. The talk by Rivera and Torres, “Monitoring and Assessment of Anthropogenic Contaminant Distributions in Karst Systems” was a part of the Karst Aquifers Session being held at the conference. […]

Congratulations to our 2016 PROTECT Trainee Individual Development Plan (IDP) Award winners for their successful efforts in enhancing their extracurricular experiences and increasing their professional skills. Winners will be provided with a $1,500 stipend to be used towards attending a conference of their choice from a list of pre-approved options. The winners are:   Nerida […]