Bard College has received $69,886 from the Hudson River Foundation for Science and Environmental Research Inc., a New York City not-for-profit corporation, to support a two-year project that will update and improve water quality datasets.
According to the Annandale-on-Hudson school, the principal investigators on the project – Elias Dueker, associate professor of environmental and urban studies, and Gabriel Perron, associate professor of biology – will work with students to analyze microbiological micropollution samples and then synthesize those results with historical water quality data obtained from Bard and community partnership programs that monitored the Saw Kill tributary from the mid-1970s to early 1980s, and from 2015 to present. Bard faculty members Krista Caballero, Jordan Ayala, Beate Liepert, and Josh Bardfield, who helped write the grant, will also participate in the project during its second year.
Bard’s research will be presented to community groups, and community member participation will be solicited, with the results being published in white papers and academic journal articles. Bard will also partner with the Saw Kill Watershed Community and the Hudson River Water Association to disseminate the results.
“This partnership with Hudson River Foundation allows the Bard Center for Environmental Science and Humanities to strengthen its commitment to using science as a tool for environmental and social change,” said Deuker. “We hope this unique effort to utilize and elevate community-fueled science will serve as a model for contemporary and meaningful approaches to creating climate resilient communities in the Hudson Valley.”
Photo: Students who gathered water quality data during a Bard program in 2015. From left, Becket Landsbury ’16, Pola Khun ’17, Clea Schumer (Red Hook High School), Daniella Azulai ’17, Haley Goss-Holmes ’17, Yuejiao Wan ’18, and Marco Spodek ’17; photo courtesy of Bard College.
