Author Archives: Laura Toran

Ellen Herman, Jim Berglund and I had two new papers accepted this past month.  The first is a book chapter summarizing our recent data from central PA springs and comparing it to the data from Shuster and White (1972).  We … Continue reading →

I met with faculty and students at Bucks County Community College in their new science building this month.  The students had a lot of questions about the job market and I explained some programs in our department at Temple University … Continue reading →

I have three honors students in my hydro class this semester, all doing extra projects.  Tyler Wong is writing a program to extract storm data from data loggers files.  Olivia de Oliviera is sampling algae on rocks in the Wissahickon … Continue reading →

I am teaching Groundwater Hydrology in the spring semester for the first time.  My first challenge was finding a field trip for the first month of classes in the winter.  My second challenge was three honors students in the class … Continue reading →

The paper on geophysical monitoring of a tracer test at the Shale Hills Critical Zone observatory was accepted in Vadose Zone Journal: coauthors are Jon Nyquist, Lacey Pittman, along with Penn State collaborators Henry Lin and Guo Li.

I gave a webinar for Onset, the company that makes a lot of the data loggers that I use.  The webinar was about how to use water level loggers for low cost monitoring of stormwater control measures.  I showed a … Continue reading →

Students in my graduate contaminant hydrology class ended the semester with an exercise in the HAZWOPER safety training class.  We used a black light to see if they got through the decon station without touching their clothes.  Everyone passed.

I helped grad student Vince Carsillo install some soil moisture sensors at his field site.  We are comparing infiltration patterns where an old house was located on the Ambler campus.  The front yard was easy to dig, the house  not … Continue reading →

Steve Scott BS 2004 stopped by for a visit while hosting a Spark Innovation challenge. This is a think tank where students team up solve real world problems along side industry reps with a 24 hour deadline.  Steve and I … Continue reading →

Stephen Rier of Bloomsburg University visited the Wissahickon Creek this month to take a look at the aquatic habitat and find out about our monitoring program.  He shared pictures of algae and diatoms in the stream that we don’t usually … Continue reading →