Global Partnerships Provide a Path to Sustainability by Laura L. McConnell
S
ometimes one idea can change the course of your life. It happened for me in the Fall of my sophomore year at the College of Charleston. A lecture delivered by Dr. Frank Kinard, my professor and mentor at the College of Charleston, inspired me to pursue a career in environmental chemistry. Frank was a beloved professor at College of Charleston for 41 years who also served as secretary of the American Chemical Society Division of Nuclear Chemistry and Technology for 17 years. More importantly, he loved working with and mentoring students [1]. During his lecture that day, Frank described how he used the ocean as his research laboratory. On board the University of Puerto Rico Research Vessel Crawford (Figure 1), Frank measured dissolved oxygen, temperature, and salinity at multiple depths to 2500 meters along a transect from Puerto Rico to Venezuela in the Eastern Caribbean Sea [2]. From this work, he created underwater maps of dissolved oxygen and increased our knowledge of Sargasso Sea water movement into the Caribbean Sea. Sitting in his classroom, the light bulb went on for me! I realized that chemical measurement tools could be used outside the walls of a laboratory to explore and to understand this amazing planet where we all live. In that moment, I became curious to learn more, so I decided on a path towards an Environmental Chemistry career. Since then, I’ve been on a journey of exploration and discovery working to find solutions to address the critical challenges facing our world.
Figure 1. Research Vessel Crawford (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, History of WHOI Ships https:// www.whoi.edu/multimedia/v-history-of-whoi-ships/)
Exploring Large Lakes
I wonder if you can picture yourself on a ship in rough waters inside a tiny laboratory, trying to operate equipment while the floors are constantly moving. I found that conducting research in the real world while fighting seasickness, was really challenging! As a graduate student at University of South Carolina, I was fortunate enough to find just the kind of chemistry research I was interested in and a great mentor, Dr. Terry Bidleman. During my graduate research, I dragged stainless steel tanks, and pumps and all sorts of gear on to research ships like the United States Environmental Protection Agency Research Vessel Roger R. Simons (Figure 2). I collected and analyzed water and air samples from the Great Lakes [3] and from the world’s deepest, Lake Baikal [4-5] for trace levels of highly persistent pollutants to investigate the processes that controlled the movement of chemicals like polychlorinated biphenyls from the air into large lakes and then into wildlife like fish and seals.
Figure 2. United States Environmental Protection Agency Research Vessel Roger R. Simons (left). Laura McConnell, aboard the R/V Roger R. Simons in 1990. Chemistry International
January-March 2024
3
