• Daemen Voice (Spring 2024)

Two Daemen University researchers will lead a consortium of institutions on a statewide survey of the year-long effects of winter road salt on stream organism biodiversity and biochemical properties.  Dr. Sarah Whorley and Dr. Jeffrey Law, both associate professors of biology in the Natural Science Program, were awarded grants from the U.S. Geological Survey through the New York State Water Resources Institute, the Lake Erie Watershed Protection Alliance, and the Niagara County Soil and Water Conservation District. 

• Northeast Algal Society (Spring 2023)

Alex Hangen has been awarded the Ron Hoham Undergraduate Research Grant from the Northeast Algal Society.  This award will fund his senior capstone research project to collect and measure phytoplankton from Lake Ontario waters and from fish gut contents in association with microplastics. This work aims to describe the ways that microplastics are interacting with and affecting several trophic levels of Great Lakes food webs.

• Society for Freshwater Science (Summer 2021)

Satisfying our students’ need for intellectual stimulation after six months of remote interaction is important however difficult while following COVID-19 safety guidelines. Students must be ready to return to remote learning at a moment’s notice greatly limits research options, especially within the context of a course. Winogradsky columns make physically spaced research possible and allows for locational flexibility. Daemen College’s Ecotoxicology course created Winogradsky columns of local wetland materials and examined the effects of different concentrations of Round-Up (source of glyphosate) on benthic microbial development and habitat nutrient cycling.  Round-Up significantly affects the microbial community by decreasing abundance and hampering their ability to process nutrient influxes resulting from glyphosate metabolism. 

• Making Waves Podcast - Society for Freshwater Science (Winter 2020)

Everyone loves a field trip, right? This episode is about why field trips are so important to college classes about freshwater science, and ways to get students in the field when class sizes are large or taught online. 

• Canisius College Conservation Conversations (Winter 2020)

I was invited by the students of Canisius College's Conservation Conversations podcast to come record an episode! Sierra and Gaby (now graduated!) were great hosts and their work with this podcast is fabulous!

• Daemen Today - The Power of Research (Winter 2018)

“Algae plays an important role in an aquatic ecosystem, making up the base of the aquatic food web, including in streams all around Erie County,” explains Whorley, now in her third year as a professor of biology at Daemen. “For our Think Tank project, we collected algae to use as biological indicators in assessing water quality in local streams.”