Three Washington State University researchers were recently honored by the Ecological Society of America.
Steve Powers, associate researcher in the School of the Environment, received the Gene Likens Award for last year’s Nature Geoscience paper, “Long-term accumulation and transport of anthropogenic phosphorus in three river basins.” The award “recognizes work conducted by an early career scientist (within five years of receiving a Ph.D.) for work conducted after the completion of graduate school.”
A common element in fertilizer, phosphorus often runs into waterways, leading to algae blooms and oxygen-deprived “dead zones.”
Powers was lead author of the Nature Geoscience paper, a landmark in estimating on a large scale how phosphorus flows through the environment over many decades.
Erin Hanan, a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, was awarded the Elizabeth Sulzman Award for her 2016 paper, “Nitrogen cycling and export in California
chaparral: the role of climate in shaping ecosystem responses to fire” in Ecological Monographs. The Sulzman award recognizes research conducted while a graduate student and published within two years of graduation.
Rebecca Evans was awarded one of six society travel grants. She is a master’s student working with Dave Evans to study the effects of herbivory and nitrogen fixing that Lupines lepidus has on soil microbial communities, and carbon and nitrogen biogeochemical cycling on Mount St. Helens. She is also part of C-NSPIRE, an interdisciplinary certificate program aimed at bridging the gaps between policy, education, and science.
Evans used her grant to support her “Geoscientist in the Park” internship at North Cascades National Park, “working on nitrogen deposition science, education, and outreach.” She also used the grant to
attend the ESA annual meeting in Portland.