Aliya Caldwell Wins First Place in Poster Competition at the Rutgers Microplastics Conference
Aliya Caldwell (EENR ’20) was awarded first place in the poster competition at the Microplastics in the Urban Environment conference held on March 28th at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. Aliya’s project, titled “Plastic Ingestion by Seabirds Nesting in the Gulf of Maine”, investigated the types and quantities of plastics ingested by gulls in the Gulf of Maine. Aliya conducted her research at Shoals Marine Laboratory under the advisement of Dr. Elizabeth Craig (Shoals Marine Laboratory) and Dr. Jennifer Seavey (Shoals Marine Laboratory; University of New Hampshire; Cornell University) with funding from the Stifel Endowment at Cornell University. In the coming year, Aliya will extend the scope of her research to include common and roseate terns and to screen for microplastics and fibers in the diets of these birds. Her new research will be the basis of her George H. Cook Senior Research Thesis under the direction of Dr. John Wiedenmann (DEENR) and in collaboration with Dr. Keith Cooper (Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology).
April 2019