Hethre Larivee of North Sutton, New Hampshire, graduated in 2007 with a B.S. in environmental science and has entered the University of New Hampshire’s graduate program in civil engineering. The research she describes in her article took place during spring semester, 2007, and became part of her senior thesis. Hethre became interested in the possible uses of apatite phosphate rock while a laboratory assistant for Bradley Crannell, one of her mentors. Despite inconclusive results, Hethre very much enjoyed her research and gained valuable real–world experience in important environmental issues, such as eutrophication, as well as practice in writing up her analyses. She also gained a firm understanding of the reality that research does not always pan out as planned. Hethre spends her free time as a glass artist and has work in the permanent collection of the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York.
Before the grant funding his research expired in October 2007 Bradley Crannell was a level II research scientist in the Environmental Research Group of the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of New Hampshire. Crannell had been with UNH for eleven years and specializes in environmental chemistry with a focus on remediating heavy metal pollution, often with phosphorus from apatite rock. In his first time as an official faculty mentor, he inspired Hethre to do further research on apatite rock for her senior thesis. He found working with Hethre on her research project to be very rewarding for both himself and Hethre.
Dr. Kevin Gardner is Director of the University of New Hampshire’s Environmental Research Group as well as an associate professor in the Department of Civil Engineering. He has spent eight years at UNH specializing in environmental and sustainability engineering with particular interests in contaminated sediments, industrial ecology, and materials recycling. Gardner found Hethre’s research project interesting and worthwhile even though some problems in the field interfered with obtaining conclusive field–scale results.
Read Hethre Larivee’s research article Making Green Water Clear: Using Alternative Technology to Treat Eutrophic Freshwater >>
