Student Research

Student Research at WWU

Many WWU undergraduate and MS graduate student have conducted independent research under the mentorship of Dr. Sofield. The undergraduate students can complete a significant body of work as their senior project or thesis (those students listed below) or as an Independendent Study class, where their research is typically a smaller scope and designed to support the on-going research in the lab. Undergraduate students have also completed work with other research mentors as part of an REU or SULI program, or in collaboration with a colleague at another University; the research conducted by this group of students is also listed below.

Graduate Student Research

Catherine Bollinger, Huxley College of the Environment MS graduate student, graduated Winter, 2008. Modeling Metal Speciation and Toxicity in the Columbia River and its Tributaries, British Columbia and Washington. Funded by the Border Policy Research Institute, Western Washington University.
Daniel Diedrich, Huxley College of the Environment MS graduate student, graduated Spring, 2007. The Effects of Chronological Age and Size in Juvenile Brown Trout Exposed to Zinc. Funded by Region VIII USEPA.
Matt Ferguson, Huxley College of the Environment MS Graduate Student, graduated Fall, 2011. Determination of Sorption Constants of Ag and Ag Nanoparticles to Algae.
Jason Fortner, Huxley College of the Environment MS graduate student, graduated Spring, 2009. Application of Whole Effluent Toxicity test methods to groundwater in Western Washington. Illuminating Whole Effluent Toxicity Testing: Ultraviolet Radiation, Phototoxicity, and PAH-Contaminated Groundwater. Funded by Washington Department of Ecology.
Renee Ragsdale, Huxley College of the Environment MS Graduate Student, graduated Fall, 2011. Evaluation of the Contribution to Toxicity of Black Liquor in Pulp and Paper Mill Effluents.
George Burgess, Huxley College of the Environment MS student, graduated Spring, 2015. Effects of Heavy Metals on Benthic Macroinvertebrates in the Cordillera Blanca, Peru
Lindsay Wallis, Huxley College of the Environment MS student, graduated Fall 2016. Spatial Variability of Snow Chemistry of High Altitude Glaciers in the Peruvian Andes.
Ed Bain, Huxley College of the Environment MS Student, graduated Summer 2017. An Investigation of Acid Rock
Drainage in Glacial Streams Through Multivariate Exploratory Analysis and the Biotic Ligand
Model in the Cordillera Blanca, Peru.
Gunnar Guddal, Huxley College of the Environment MS Student, graduated Fall 2018. Characterization of
Particulate Matter Accumulated on Ramalina farinacea in the Seattle Area Using SemiAutomated Electron Microscopy.
Claire Walli, Huxley College of the Environment MS Student, graduated Spring, 2019. Impacts of Major Freshwater Ions on the Acute Toxicity and Chemical Behavior of Silver Nanoparticles.
Allie Johnson, Huxley College of the Environment MS Student, granduated Fall 2021. Effects of Environmental Aging on the Acute Toxicity and Chemical Composition of Various Microplastic Leachates.
Jeffrey Pratt, Huxley College of the Environment MS Student, granduated Fall 2021. Using Principal Component Analysis and Hierarchical Clustering to Explore Trends in the Water Quality, Metal Concentrations, and Algal Taxa Richness of 68 Lakes in Northwest Washington.
Matt Roberts, Huxley College of the Environment MS Student, granduated Fall 2021. Effects of environmental weathering on the acute toxicity of tire wear particle eluate to the mysid shrimp, Americamysis bahia

Examples of Undergraduate Student Research Working Under Sofield Mentorship

An updated and complete list of undergraduate students who have worked on research is included in my CV.

Selected reports available as Adobe pdf.

Catherine Bollinger, 2005. Inductively Coupled Plasma- Atomic Emission Spectrometry analysis of heavy metal concentrations, associated with mining waste, in water, sediment and macroinvertebrates samples from Canyon Creek and Ninemile Creek (Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho).
Brian Church, 2010. Ability of the White-Rot Fungus, Pleurotus ostreatus, to Degrade Benzo[a]pyrene Under Variable Nonionic Surfactant Amendment Regimes.
Emily DeVore, Cassady Ells, and Walden Marcus, 2021. Toxicity of Tire Wear Particles to Mysid Shrimp: A Comparison of Tires from Different Manufacturing Years.
Emily Duncanson, 2010. Community Level Effects on Benthic Macroinvertebrates in Mine Impacted Streams in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
Matt Ferguson, 2008. An Evaluation of Environmental Influences on Tributyltin Toxicity Using the Macroalgae Ulva lactuca.
Jacki Ford, 2012. Effect of Temperature on Metal toxicity to Lemna turionifera.
Kate Foster, 2010. The Effects of Exposure to Silver Nanoparticles and Humic Acid on Mung Beans (Vigna radiata).
Nick Galvin, 2011. Quantifying the Activity of Pleurotus ostreatus Ligninolytic Enzymes in the Presence of Benzo[a]pyrene and Three Nonionic Surfactants.
Carly Greyell, 2011. Mussel Deployment at a MTCA Clean-up Site: Testing for Bioaccumulation and Sub-lethal Effects of Creosote-Treated Wood Pilings.
Emily Halley, 2011. An Evaluation of Remedial Approaches for Contaminated Sediment in Fidalgo Bay: Biomarker Response and Bioaccumlation in Caged Mussels (Mytilus galloprovincialis).
Alicia Harp, 2004. Effects of Water Chemistry on Metal-Metal Interactions in Daphnia magna.
Daniel Heimbigner, 2010. A Novel Fungal Growth Inhibition Bioassay and Effects of Suwannee River Humic Acid on Nanosilver Toxicity.
Nicolette Hernandez-Kaempf, 2019. UV-Vis of Silver Nanoparticles in Different Freshwater Media.
Sage Ince, 2019. Monitoring microplastics in Bellingham Bay sediments.
Cristina La, Kaitlyn Flynn, Amy Simmons, and Paige Shimkus, 2021. An
Evaluation of Air Pollution Using Moss as a Bioindicator.
Ben Maki, 2015. Effects of Abiotic and Biotic Factors on Arsenic Bioavailability and Mobility in Soils.
Craig Murdock, 2012. Effect of Temperature on Metal toxicity to Lemna turionifera.
Finn O’Hea, 2020. Spatial Relationship Between Impervious Surfaces and Accumulated Chemicals in
Salish Sea Seaweeds
Matt Perkins, 2011.Sublethal Effects of Untreated Wood Waste to Mytilus galloprovincialis.
James Plante, 2009. Benthic Invertebrate Metal Exposure and Community-Level Effects Associated with Mining Waste in Canyon Creek (Coeur d’Alene).
Siobhan Sloan-Evans, 2010. A Sediment Quality Triad Assessment of Remediation at a Model Toxics Control Act (MTCA) Cleanup Site.
Jamey Stoddard, 2007. Effects of multi-generational Exposure of Daphnia magna to copper.

WWU Undergraduate Student Research Under the Guidance of Researchers at Other Institutions

Students listed here were academic advisees of Dr. Sofield. If a * is by the student name, this work was used as their WWU senior project/thesis.

- Macon Abernathy*, Summer 2015
  - Research: Effects of Ocean Acidification to the Environmental Proxy δ¹⁸O in Scleractinian Coral Species.
  - Research mentors: Dr. Kim Cobb
  - Location: Aquatic Chemical Ecology at the Georgia Institute of Technology
  - Program: NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU)
- Alan Bergmann*, Summer 2009
  - Research: Freshwater Algae Nitrogen Incorporation in Response to Nutrient Enrichment of P and N Limited Assemblages.
  - Research mentors: Dr. John Berges and Dr. Erica Young
  - Location: Great Lakes WATER Institute (GLWI) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
  - Program: NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU)
- Bonnie Blalock*, Summer 2010
  - Research: Chronic Exposure Impacts of C60-stirred and C60-OH Nanoparticles on Daphnia magna: Relating Genomic Data and Mortality as a Tool for Future Environmental Impact Analysis.
  - Research mentor: Dr. Rebecca Klaper
  - Location: Great Lakes WATER Institute (GLWI) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
  - Program: NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU)

- Maria Brown*, Summer 2009
  - Research: Combined Effects of Sodium Chloride and Copper to the Amphibian Species Cope’s Gray Tree Frog (Hyla chrysoscelis) and Green Frog (Rana clamitans).
  - Research mentors: Dr. David Ownby and Dr. Joel Snodgrass
  - Location: Program in Urban Environmental Biogeochemistry, Towson University, Towson, Maryland
  - Program: NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU)

- Stephanie Eckard*, Summer 2010
  - Research: Method Development and Seasonal Variation in the Fractionated polysaccharides of Brown Seaweeds for Bioethanol Production.
  - Research mentor: Dr. Gary Gill
  - Location: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s (PNNL) Marine Science Laboratory (MSL) in Sequim, WA
  - Program: Department of Energy, Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship (SULI)

- Melody Feden*, Summer 2007
  - Research: Organism Consideration in Ecotoxicological Testing: Enzyme Response to PAH Exposures in Red and Green Autochthonous Crabs (Carcinus maenus).
  - Research mentor: Dr. Lucia Guilhermino
  - Location: Centre of Marine and Environmental Research (CIIMAR), University of Porto, Portugal

- Evan Gray*, Summer 2008
  - Research: Predation on Green Frog Eggs (Rana clamitans) by Ostracoda.
  - Research mentors: Dr. David Ownby and Dr. Joel Snodgrass
  - Location: Program in Urban Environmental Biogeochemistry, Towson University, Towson, Maryland
  - Program: NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU)

- Mitra Geier*, Summer 2012
  - Research:
  - Research mentors: Dr. Lucio Costa
  - Location: University of Washington, Seattle, WA
  - Program: NIEHS Environmental Health Research Experience Program

- Evan Malcyzk*, Summer 2005
  - Research: Effects of Iron Addition on methylmercury Production in Florida Everglades Soils.
  - Location: Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC)
  - Program: NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU)

- Siobhan Sloan-Evans, Summer 2011
  - Research mentor: Dr. Jim Spain
  - Location: Georgia Tech
  - Program: NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU)

- Matt Slattery*, Summer 2012
  - Research: Interspecific Competition Reduces Diversification During Adaptive Radiation.
  - Research mentors: Dr. Lin Jiang
  - Location: Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
  - Program: NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU)

- Sara Vliet*, Summer 2014
  - Research: Endocrine Disrupting Effects of Guanylurea in the Fathead Minnow (Pimephales promelas)
  - Research mentors: Dr. Rebecca Klaper
  - Location: Great Lakes WATER Institute (GLWI) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
  - Program: NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU)

Chad Weldy*, Summer 2007
- Research: Lipid Production by Dunaliella salina in Batch Culture: Effects of Nitrogen Limitation and Light Intensity.
- Research mentor: Dr. Michael Huesemann
- Location: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s (PNNL) Marine Science Laboratory (MSL) in Sequim, WA
- Program: Department of Energy, Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship (SULI)
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