UM grad students honored

ORONO – Two University of Maine graduate students from Surry and Bangor have received fellowships from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to support their research. They are Karen Merritt of Surry, a doctoral candidate in civil and environmental engineering, and Nicolas Blouin of Bangor, a master’s candidate in marine biology.

They are among 124 recipients of fellowships recently awarded to students conducting environmental research throughout the country. The value of the award is $70,000 over two years for Blouin and $105,000 over three years for Merritt.

Merritt works with UMaine engineer Aria Amirbahman on a new method for analyzing mercury in sediments. The system uses a thin membrane made of chitosan, a material that can be made from lobster and crab shells.

Merritt has a bachelor’s degree in geology from Carleton College and a master’s degree from the department of plant, soil and environmental sciences at UMaine. She has taught shipboard marine science for the Sea Education Association of Woods Hole, Mass.

In her research, she and Amirbahman are using sediments from the Penobscot River to see how effectively the membranes pick up mercury. They chemically modify the chitosan membrane material to increase its mercury binding capacity. Merritt’s goals are to determine the best way to absorb and hold mercury-bearing compounds and to separate them by varying degrees of biological availability.

Blouin is working with UMaine marine biologist Susan Brawley to understand the reproductive mechanisms and potential uses of a common seaweed known as porphyra. The marine plant with the purple blade also goes by the popular names nori and laver and is used in a variety of food products ranging from Japanese sushi to casseroles.

“Porphyra has a great flavor,” said Blouin, who has a background in commercial photography and a bachelor of fine arts from the Rochester Institute of Technology.

In his research, he divides his time between Brawley’s laboratory on the Orono campus, the waters off Schoodic Point at Acadia National Park and UMaine’s Center for Cooperative Aquaculture Research in Franklin. At Schoodic, he collects porphyra samples and studies its distribution and abundance. At CCAR, Blouin is studying techniques for growing porphyra in tanks as well as its potential to grow alongside finfish aquaculture pens.

Porphyra blades of different species can be difficult to distinguish in the wild, said Blouin. In Orono, he dries and grinds the leaves to identify species by analyzing their DNA.