EPA Merit Award for Charles River Research

Hi Friends: Greetings from Istanbul (vacation). This month I am happy to share with you that the EPA has decided to recognize the research our team has done over the past eight years on the water quality of the Charles River. They awarded me the Environmental Merit Award. See an article on the NU web page here: http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2012/04/swimming-in-that-dirty-water/ I am very pleased about this and it made me think back to when I interviewed to join the faculty here in 2004. In my seminar I said I would develop a research program focusing on the water quality of the Charles, with a special focus on swimming. This award makes me feel that I am making good on that promise. But we are not done and will not stop until we can swim! In 2004 we started by looking at E. coli, but in the past couple of years our focus has increasingly shifted towards cyanobacteria. This summer we have a pretty intensive sampling and analysis effort, including daily sampling at multiple locations, doing cell counts, nutrients, N fixation and other parameters. Take care, Ferdi