Author Archives: Laura Toran

The annual Geological Society of America (GSA) meeting was in Seattle this year and four students presented on different research projects: Shondricka Burrell: A GEOPATH-funded math mentoring initiative for retention Vince Carsillo: Mapping water infiltration of urban soils using electromagnetic … Continue reading →

During the month of September, we conducted two day-long stream tracer tests near Gwynedd Valley and Ambler.   During the tracer test we add two non-toxic, fluorescent dyes into the Creek and track how that dye signal comes through further downstream. … Continue reading →

Banner month for journal publications.  Two new ones accepted.  One is on the qPCR study of microbial community structure near the WWTP in the Wissahickon that my postdoc Sarah Ledford and Jake Price of Drexel University designed. STOTEN-qPRC_Final (proofs) The … Continue reading →

Liz Cushman joined our research group this fall.  She got her undergrad degree from Juniata College and worked in environmental consulting for several years before joining Temple to work on urban hydrology.  She has already been out in the field … Continue reading →

PhD student Jim Berglund got what we think is the first stormwater data for REEs.  The storm samples had higher concentrations (sample 18) and background (shown in sample 24) had stronger anomalies than storm samples.  This data will help us … Continue reading →

Congrats to Postdoc Sarah Ledford and her colleague Marie Kurz at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University on receiving funds for an NSF Rapid grant.  This is a grant to perform a time-sensitive experiment.   Their project makes use … Continue reading →

We simulated a stormwater event at the I-95 basins to see how they performed at capacity.  Dye tracers helped us follow the event, along with our geophysical survey, monitored by grad student Vince Carsillo and undergrad Tyler Wong.

We have been comparing turbidity patterns upstream and downstream of a WWTP on the Wissahickon.  The two sites have very different grain size and one site is highly embedded while the other is not at all embedded.  Despite these differences … Continue reading →

Postdoc Sarah Ledford and colleague Marie Kurz at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University recently got news that they will receive a RAPID grant from NSF to study stream metabolism upstream and downstream of WWTP on the WIssahickon. … Continue reading →

Both Chelsea Kanaley’s and Jim Berglund’s ISCO samplers triggered for a storm this month so we had almost 100 samples to filter all in one day.  The lab bench got crowded but no one mixed up samples.  Undergrad assistant Arnetia … Continue reading →