Unity College student lands $50K federal research fellowship

Rae-Ann MacLellan-Hurd, an earth and environmental science major at Unity College, has been awarded a $50,000 federal fellowship under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Greater Research Opportunities Fellowships for Undergraduate Environmental Study.

MacLellan-Hurd said in a release about the fellowship that she would use the funds for tuition and her ongoing research. She is studying the flow of phosphorus and nitrogen through Lake Winnecook in Unity, which also is known as Unity Pond, with attention to runoff, tributary flow and sediment-water interface reactions.

The fellowship will cover the costs of field work, supplies and lab analyses, and will help defray other costs associated with her internship at an EPA regional laboratory in North Chelmsford, Mass. There, she will help conduct a real-time sensor monitoring and wetland assessment project.

“EPA recognizes that scientific, technical, engineering and mathematical competence is essential to the nation’s future well-being in terms of national security and competitive economic advantage,” the EPA said in a statement about the fellowship. “The health and vitality of the economy is predicated, in part, on the availability of an adequate supply of scientists, technicians, engineers and mathematicians to develop innovative technologies and solutions. This country must engage all available minds to address the challenges it faces.”

Unity College: High demand leads to ‘instant admissions day’

#MBNext16: Melik Peter Khoury is an agent of change at 'America's Environmental College'