Students dive into summer microplastics research experience
Austin Gray knows microplastics pose a macro threat.
“Humans are not just exposed to microplastics," said Gray, assistant professor of biological sciences. “We are consuming them. They’re within the blood, they’re in breast milk, and there are a lot of concerns that we don’t know about.”
An expert on environmental toxicology, Gray recently teamed up with Tina Dura, assistant professor of geosciences and an expert on coastal stratigraphy, to collaborate on the first microplastics summer research experience offered to Virginia Tech students.
“Professors Gray and Dura have developed the first summer research experience of its kind to train the next generation of environmental scientists in this critically important field,” said John Morris, associate dean for research in the College of Science. “Their research and student mentoring through the microplastics summer research experience will eventually impact government policy and help protect our ocean ecosystems.”
Designed to teach and mentor undergraduate students, the four-week program provides students with experience in every aspect of research from topical studies and immersive field work to lab analysis and professional development. The experience is funded by the Virginia Tech Seale Coastal Zone Observatory, which is a new initiative at the intersection of developing science and environmental policy.
“By bringing these two areas of expertise together, we were able to come up with a new way to involve undergraduates in collecting data and looking at how microplastics have been present in these intertidal marsh environments through time,” said Dura, director of the Coastal Hazards Lab and an affiliated faculty with the Global Change Center. “A lot of the microplastics work that’s out there has focused on surface sediments, and what we’re doing now is looking for when microplastics first appeared in marshes.”
Gray and Dura’s first summer research experience launched in June. Along with an intensive overview of march ecosystems, the program allowed students to collect sediment core samples from the saltmarshes of the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean and taught them how to extract and test the samples.
“As a biology major, I didn't know a lot about soils, or anything about geology,” said Piyali Roy, an undergraduate biology major. “Coming out here and doing the core processing and the modern transects and learning how that ties into microplastics and ecology is really cool. I've also never really been hiking on a marsh before, so that was really fun.”
During these analyses, they were trained to use specialized instruments, such as the Raman Mass Spectroscopy instrument in Gray's lab.
“For student engagement and research experience, having access to instrumentation that you normally wouldn't have access to is one of those things that really make students stand out,” said Gray, who is also an affiliated faculty with the Global Change Center.
At the end of the program, the students created posters representing their research and findings and presented them to peersat a symposium.
“A really big thing for now is being able to present better,” said Ted Docev, an undergraduate researcher majoring in geosciences. “I am looking forward to developing my presentation skills, giving poster presentations and then eventually maybe even talks or beyond if I get that far because right now I definitely struggle with public speaking, and that's a huge thing.”
Gray and Dura both believe this partnership may lead to other innovative collaborations and are already looking ahead to future programs and the possibility of including additional researchers.
“My hope is that going forward this microplastic summer research experience will be held yearly and we can continue to evolve,” said Dura who is also affiliated with the Fralin Life Sciences Institute. “The work we do is both beneficial for the students to have this hands-on experience, but it is also contributing to the bigger research. I think we just scratched the surface of the different environments we can sample down for the different research questions that we can ask.”
