T-RUST students receive grant for studying groundwater in southeast Michigan

This year, T-RUST trainees Colleen Linn (anthropology), Camille Akemann (pharmacology) and Brendan O'Leary (civil engineering) received a $10,000 grant from the American Geophysical Union in order to host a series of sessions about best practices in interdisciplinary research, and to further explore how to make the interdisciplinary research process more rewarding and effective.

The team will attend and host a session at a conference in each of the trainee's home disciplines, in order o broaden exposure and discourse about interdisciplinary research and sustainability across academic disciplines. Their research project, "Groundwater quality in Southeast Michigan: Corridors towards exposure and conceptualizing municipal response," focuses on groundwater issues that are often overlooked due to the state's freshwater reserves.

Linn will be taking a closer look at social and policy issues surrounding the dioxane plume in Ann Arbor, while also looking into how Detroit manages its groundwater resources. T-RUST is an interdisciplinary PhD program, funded by the National Science Foundation intending to train students in interdisciplinary thinking and practices to foster urban sustainability initiatives.