WSSS Students
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Ali S Akanda Degree
and Expected Year of Graduation Advisor
Primary
Research Topic |
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Cholera remains a major public health issue in the developing world, mainly in coastal areas around the tropics. Cholera incidence shows significant bi-annual peaks and strong inter-annual variability in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna basin region of South Asia. Increasing water temperature and phytoplankton blooms during the spring low flow season increases the concentration of pathogenic V. Cholerae in the coastal Bay of Bengal region. Sea water intrusion during this time of the year provides favorable conditions for the first outbreak of cholera. Cholera incidence decreases during peak monsoon precipitation period when most of the region undergoes flooding and open mixing of water networks and reservoirs. The second peak is triggered in late monsoon and has shown strong links with above average floods. Cholera epidemics have been historically linked to climate variables and more recently with El Nino-Southern Oscillation; however, the role of hydroclimatology and the regional ocean-atmospheric processes is poorly understood. The goal is to understand the role of these processes in an attempt to identify predictors with significant memory on a seasonal or longer time scale. Other
Project Titles Water-Relevant
Experiences, Technical Skills, Software, Languages | |
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Melissa Bailey Degree
and Expected Year of Graduation Advisors
Primary
Research Topic |
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This dissertation project seeks to understand the role of EQIP in promoting sustainable or unsustainable livestock production with a focus on water quality and manure management issues. Coupling qualitative and quantitative methods from political and environmental science, this project will analyze the interest groups politics that shaped EQIP program priorities, evaluate whether EQIP is meeting water quality goals set by federal policy and create a framework on what factors or characteristics of livestock operations are most critical to sustainability. This framework will be used to test the hypothesis that EQIP priorities are, in some cases, failing to meet sustainability goals. Publications
Water-Relevant
Experiences, Technical Skills, Software, Languages Post Graduation Interests | |
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Alex Bedig Degree
and Expected Year of Graduation Advisor Primary
Research Topic |
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My research is the development of an open-source GIS-based watershed-to-regional scale water management software package built to work with standalone modules that interchangeably characterize waterborne contaminants and diseases through time and over space. The basic idea is to create a software package that frees people from the need to understand hydrological modeling, allowing new research on disease and contaminant fate, transport, and interaction with various species (like humans) to be quickly implemented into a computing environment that can produce results relevant to decision makers. By making it open-source and Linux-based, I hope to be able to overcome the cost barrier that has kept water quality modeling tools on the watershed and regional scale from being adopted by many of the poorer nations where they're needed most, as well as encourage academic institutions to build disease or contaminant-specific modules for it based on their own research. Professionally, I have experience with reservoir storm operations, temperature and economic solutions modeling for habitat preservation, water rights transfer law in California, and database design and management. Water-Relevant
Experiences, Technical Skills, Software, Languages
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Benjamin Bornstein Degree and Expected Year of Graduation Advisor Primary Research Topic |
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Recent data collected by certain environmental and health agencies suggests that various species of fish within sections of the Mystic River Watershed, MA, have high levels of toxicity. The three most commonly found substances are DDT, chlordane, and PCBs. These compounds have been banned for years in the US but are persistent in the environment and can bioaccumulate to dangerously high levels, especially in the tissues of higher trophic-level organisms. Anecdotal evidence indicates that many community members, especially from certain environmental justice and ethnic populations, may be relying on Mystic-caught fish as a common source of food. These substances are known to cause detrimental effects on human and animal health after high or prolonged exposure. Through my research I hope to gain insight as to the level of risk the contaminated fish pose to humans that consume them, and what sort of long term implications contaminated water and sediments may have on the ecosystem. I will also try to determine exposure statistics for people that consume toxic fish, and try to assess if state advisories are appropriate and having the desired impact. Other Project Titles Water-Relevant Experiences, Technical Skills, Software,
Languages Post Graduation Interests |
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Ashley Colpaart Degree
and Expected Year of Graduation Advisor
Primary
Research Topic |
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Rhiannon Ervin Degree
and Expected Year of Graduation Advisor
Primary
Research Topic |
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In recent history, many groundwater aquifers have been contaminated by accidental or purposeful disposal of organic compounds, such as chlorinated solvents. Currently, a great deal of research is being conducted on how best to remove these contaminants from the subsurface and restore groundwater quality. Within the aquifer, chlorinated solvents form a non aqueous phase which is distributed as small blobs in individual sand grain pores, or as larger blobs in interconnected pores, known as pools. The best type of remediation and the benefit of attempting remediation is largely dependant on this spatial distribution. The purpose of my research is to develop a tool that can be used to estimate the spatial distribution of the contamination, with the hope that this information will help guide remediation designs. Water-Relevant Experiences, Technical Skills, Software, Languages Post Graduation Interests | |
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Yongxuan Gao Degree
and Expected Year of Graduation Advisors
Primary
Research Topic |
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Applying integrated water resources management to improve livelihood in developing countries and environmental flows. She is currently conducting her research on environmental flows in the context of small reservoirs in Ghana, West Africa. Other
Project Titles | |
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Karen Claire Kosinski Degree
and Expected Year of Graduation Advisors
Primary
Research Topic |
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Approximately thirty-five percent of children and adolescents in Adasawase, Ghana are infected with the parasite Schistosoma haematobium. They contract the parasite in several local rivers where they play, bathe, and collect water. The disease caused by this parasite, urinary schistosomiasis, may be characterized by painful urination, blood in the urine, and possible long-term bladder pathology. I hypothesize that a water recreation structure will be a novel, effective, and sustainable intervention for schistosomiasis. Water-Relevant Experiences, Technical Skills,
Software, Languages Post Graduation Interests | |
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Jack Melcher Degree and Expected Year of Graduation Advisors Primary Research Topic |
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My research will examine the use of stormwater modeling techniques to place Best Management Practices and meet water quality goals. Other Project Titles Water-Relevant Experiences, Technical Skills, Software, Languages Post Graduation Interests |
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Laura G. Meloney Degree
and Expected Year of Graduation Advisor
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Melissa Ng Degree
and Expected Year of Graduation Advisor
Primary
Research Topic |
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My study will evaluate the combined effects of landuse, climate change and water use on the entire streamflow regime (low flows, average annual flows and floods), providing insight to the importance of considering interactions among these variables when evaluating the sensitivity of streamflow. Two watersheds within eastern Massachusetts, the Aberjona River Basin and the Neponset River Basin, will be used as case studies utilizing data from the 1940s until present. Both watersheds are similar in size and have had significant increases in urbanization. Interestingly, one river basin shows an overall increase in streamflows over the past few decades, whereas the other basin shows a decrease in low flows. In order to compare the effects of changes in landuse, climate and water use, we introduce a multivariate regression approach to estimate their elasticity. The sensitivity of streamflow to such changes is shown to be site specific and to depend heavily on the temporal and spatial scale of the analysis. Water-Relevant
Experiences, Technical Skills, Software, Languages Post Graduation Interests | |
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Sarah Trist Degree
and Expected Year of Graduation Advisor
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Water-Relevant
Experiences, Technical Skills, Software, Languages | |
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Li Wang Degree
and Expected Year of Graduation Advisor Primary
Research Topic |
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The primary goal of my research is to numerically investigate the
combined effects of mineral fouling, gas entrapment and biofouling
on the long term performance of conceptual PRB systems that are
representative of realistic groundwater remediation scenarios using
reactive transport modeling methods. To effectively predict the
evolution of such a PRB system, the processes of mineral precipitation/dissolution,
gas generation and entrapment, and biomass accumulation will be
incorporated into a reactive transport model and their impacts on
flow, reactions and transport in the PRB system will be simulated.
The influence of heterogeneity in aquifer and the PRB itself will
also be simulated to better understand the PRB performance under
typical field conditions. The modeling results will help identify
which factor or combination of factors are most important in PRB
performance evaluation and provide guidance in PRB design and operation
under different site characteristics.
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Kendall Webster Degree
and Expected Year of Graduation Advisor
Primary
Research Topic |
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This concern stems from my environmentalist
background, and I believe that if you can protect a watershed, you're
also protecting the ecosystem around the watershed. I am interested
in handling water conservation issues from a policy standpoint,
although the idea of working in politics makes my skin crawl. Right
now I'm looking at alternatives to politics. For my thesis,
I may research the strategies of non-profit organizations like the
Nature Conservancy, which buys open space to restrict development
and protect the resources it holds. This is one of my favourite
models for conservation. However, I do believe that stringent policy
for watershed protection should be developed in the next couple
of years. | |
The Water: Systems, Science and Society (WSSS) program at Tufts University is a certificate program that provides graduate students with interdisciplinary perspectives and tools to manage water-related problems around the world.
617.627.3645 | wsss@tufts.edu | WSSS, c/o Tufts Institue of the Environment | 210 Packard Ave | Medford, MA