So proud of our lab's Coastal and Environmental Fellows, Ashley and Maureen, for showcasing their amazing projects from the summer at their poster symposium. Ashley was awarded 2nd place poster for her plastics exposure work with blue crabs!!! The pinches were worth it!!

It’s not just love that’s in the air, it’s microplastics

I'm very excited to present at next week's URI 's BES Colloquium on Friday, 3/3. Please join me for a talk on my gradschool experience, government research careers, and my current work pertaining to historic releases of PFAS in RI.

Thank YOU for joining us and giving such an engaging and informative talk! Looking forward to hearing more about your fascinating research as it progresses!!

For our upcoming mesocosm experiments, we're working on creating a more naturalistic food stock (in this case, whole oysters) containing controlled doses of spike plastics for crab exposure trials! #microplastics #plasticpollution #trophictransfer #jonahcrabs

Kicked off an experiment yesterday to investigate short-term digestive behavior of Jonah crabs fed oysters inoculated with polyester microfibers!! Long couple days in the lab. Send snacks... #crabirrigationsystem #microplastics #plasticpollution #phdlife

A pretty satisfying before and after deep cleaning the #mesocosm facilities at URI Graduate School of Oceanography - almost experiment ready!

Aaaaand we're off! 60 Jonah crabs in the URI Graduate School of Oceanography mesocosm tanks to assess their interactions with #polyester #microfibers through predation of bivalves. #microplastics #marinescience #phdlife

Sarah Davis (Sarah Davis, PhD), PhD student in Coleen Suckling & #URIGSO's @anddavies labs, recently put 60 Jonah crabs in the mesocosm tanks at the URI Bay Campus to better understand the movement of #plastics through coastal food webs. #microplastics

#JonahCrab is a quickly growing commercial species, with RI landings accounting for about 25% of the total US harvest. However, the influence of anthropogenic pollutants on Jonah crabs, especially #microplastics & #microfibers, may present a threat to population productivity.

This experimental study's goal is to better understand the vulnerability or resiliency of Jonah crab to the impacts of microfiber ingestion after consuming filter-feeding bivalves, like oysters or mussels. RI Sea Grant Rhode Island EPSCoR URI CELS

A big month for RI EPSCoR! First, NSF Director Dr. Sethuraman (Panch) Panchanathan reviewed our #research & broader #impacts, and last week, investigators presented at the 2023 Global Plastics Forum URI. More on their efforts tackling the #plastics problem: ow.ly/WKb850OtCQS URI Plastics: Land to Sea

Our awesome summer fellow Lindsey imaging some humpback whale baleen for an exploratory project on #microplastics and mysticete filter feeding!

Our amazing Coastal and Environmental Fellow Lindsey built a model rack of humpback baleen and tested to see what shapes/sizes of #microplastics might be retained during filter feeding. Go Lindsey!! #oceanplastic #womeninscience

me when I can't get a good spectral library match on a blue fiber #ramanspectroscopy #microplastics #ftir

Excited to be representing URI this Friday at the Northeastern Association of Graduate School's 3-Minute Thesis regional competition! If you like #microplastics and/or #crabs...tune in!

Congratulations to Sarah Davis, PhD for passing the Doctoral Defense! So proud of all that you’ve achieved on understanding microplastic pollution presence & impacts! #Echinonerdlab URI URI CELS RI Sea Grant

This weekend I graduated with my PhD from the University of Rhode Island! Very grateful for the mentorship of my advisors, Coleen Suckling and Andy Davies, and looking forward to continuing to research emerging environmental contaminants as an ORISE postdoc fellow at the US EPA

Please share! We’re recruiting a PhD student to study microplastic presence, distribution & impacts in Rhode Island, USA. Join a large, collaborative, statewide capacity-building project funded by #NSF. 🌊🔬 shorturl.at/KmBlC #PhDposition #Microplastics #plastictreaty