#LunchWithaScientist Archives - Headwaters Science Institute

Environmental Health and Avoiding Bias featuring Dr. Raquel Silva

Mar 27, 2023

Thank you Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation for sponsoring this Lunch with a Scientist!

Raquel Silva is an environmental health scientist with a diverse background in environmental engineering, management, and policy. She holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences and Engineering from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her doctoral research involved global assessments of the impact of air pollution and climate change on human health. As an ORISE postdoctoral fellow at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Raquel conducted research on the health and well-being benefits of natural environments and integrated an EPA/NIEHS interagency research team conducting a pilot study of exposure to chemicals in consumer products. Currently, as lead health scientist at ICF, she is a project manager and subject matter expert for systematic literature reviews and report development, mostly providing support to federal agencies on human health risk and health impact assessments.

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CAAN Lab at the University of Louisville featuring Dr. Cynthia Corbitt

Feb 1, 2023

Dr. Cynthia Corbitt is a Biology Professor at the University of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky. She has broad training in neuroendocrinology and physiology, including processes and disruptions of sexual differentiation, and specifically in anatomical (e.g., histology), molecular (e.g., RNASeq, real-time q-PCR), physiological (e.g., metabolic chamber, hormone assays), and behavioral (e.g., motor development, memory, and food intake assays) techniques. Her research focus is in environmental signaling. She provides valuable advice about the importance of gaining research experience early in a budding scientists career.

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Middle School Student Investigation

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Drinking Water, Naturally Occurring Metals, and Global Health with Dr. Seth Frisbie

Jan 10, 2023

Clean water is a fundamental human right. This week, we will hear from Dr. Seth Frisbie. He has over 35 years of experience in public health. He earned his B.S. from the University of Massachusetts, his M.S. from Cornell University, and his Ph.D. from Cornell University. Dr. Frisbie is a Professor Emeritus of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Norwich University. He is the principal or co-author of numerous articles in refereed journals, chapters in scientific books, and government and United Nations reports. Our team has worked on drinking water and public health in Asia, Africa, North America, South America, and Europe. We made the first national-scale maps of arsenic, manganese, lead, nickel, and chromium affected-drinking water in Bangladesh. Dr. Frisbie has won numerous awards for outstanding research and teaching.

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Explore the relationship between corals and Vermetid snails with Dr. Anya Brown

Dec 15, 2022

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Anya Brown is a marine scientist and assistant professor at UC Davis, based at the Bodega Marine Lab in Bodega Bay, CA. She studies marine ecology, and takes particular interest in the microbes that associated with hosts (like corals!). Her work has taken her to French Polynesia, the Cayman Islands, Puerto Rico, St Croix and Massachusetts. Originally from New York, she’s moved around to lots of places around the US to gain experience and go to grad school.

Watch the Talk:

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Headwaters’ student investigation

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Thank you Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation for sponsoring this Lunch with a Scientist.

The Benefits of Beaver Dams in River Restoration with Jonathan Owens and Erika Groh

Nov 8, 2022

Thank you Soroptimist International of Truckee Donnor for sponsoring this Lunch with a Scientist!

Jonathan has been at Balance Hydrologics since 1995. He manages projects quantifying flow hydraulics, riparian roughness, channel morphology, sediment-transport and hydrologic effects of proposed land use changes. Supervises construction of creek and river restoration projects. Responsible for many streamflow, constituent-transport, and recharge simulations. Evaluates historic flow records and identifies hydrologic patterns. Models stream network discharges and temporal requirements for targeted biological species to establish water availability for consumptive uses. Participates in analyses of drainage, water budgets, and likely effects of proposed land- or water-use changes on sensitive wetlands. Performs field investigations and modeling to assess flood levels in both natural streams and vegetated, urban, flood-control channels.

Erika began working at Balance in April of this year. She is a fluvial geomorphologist who uses a combination of field measurements, hydraulic and hydrologic modeling, and GIS to understand rivers and how they interact with the Earth’s surface. She received her undergraduate degree in Geology from Arizona State University and recently graduated with her Master’s in Geology from the University of Nevada Reno. Her graduate research looked at how waterfalls affect erosion processes and involved climbing waterfalls and diving to the bottom of plunge pools with a snorkel (and also some less glamorous coding). Erika is originally from North Carolina, likes to train dogs in her free time, and is a first-generation college student!