Research fellow: Drew Phelan
Hometown: Foxborough, MA
Major: Biology
School: Bryant University
Mentor: Christopher Reid
Project: Effect of legacy pollutants on microbial communities in Narragansett Bay watershed

Last summer, Drew Phalen, who will graduate in the spring with a degree in biology, worked on a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Lyme disease project with the Rhode Island IDeA Network for Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE).

This summer, with the Rhode Island NSF EPSCoR side of the SURF program, Phelan is helping investigate how levels of toxicity from heavy metals and petrochemicals change life in the Narragansett Bay watershed.

“This is completely new to me,” Phelan said. “I didn’t have any experience in the environmental sciences. I didn’t know how interconnected everything was — that it’s not just tree hugging, but you look at at bacteria, the water, the patterns.”

Phelan is working in the lab of Assistant Professor Christopher Reid, biochemistry, who mentors undergraduates in SURF projects for both RI NSF EPSCoR and RI-INBRE.

Through Reid’s EPSCoR project this summer, Phelan said she was conducting a lot of PCR, or polymerase chain reaction, to amplify DNA extracted from Providence River sediment samples. Once amplified, the DNA gets sent to the Rhode Island Genomics and Sequencing Center, a RI EPSCoR core facility, at the University of Rhode Island for sequencing.

“The Providence River is an urban estuary,” explained Phelan. “Some of the sites along side it used to be shipyards, so there are a lot of petrochemicals and legacy pollutant runoff.”

And yet, she said, the researchers are finding shovelfuls of clams every time they dig a hole. They want to see how the metal and chemical levels in the organisms align with those in the water and sediment.

In addition to the science, Phelan said she was learning an entirely new set of skills and figuring out where her passions lie in the field. She, other SURF students, and undergraduates from across Rhode Island will present summer research findings at the 8th Annual RI SURF Conference, held at the University of Rhode Island Friday, July 31. 2015.

Graduating a year ahead of when she originally anticipated, Phelan said she planned to take a year off before applying to medical school.

Story and photo by Amy Dunkle