Last August, for the second time in as many months, I donned thigh-high waders to wade through a creek—this time just south of Selinsgrove, Pa., in a narrow stream whose waters shortly thereafter drain into the extremely broad Susquehanna River. I was working on the cover story for the fall issue of Susquehanna Currents—the alumni magazine of Susquehanna University (SU), which is located along the river in Selinsgrove.
The story, “Netting Electric Results,” details the university’s role as the hub of a coalition of 34 academic institutions, government agencies and nonprofit groups dedicated to studying and improving the health of the Susquehanna River. They are doing so through the Freshwater Research Initiative, which is being funded by a three-year, $2.5 million grant from the Richard King Mellon Foundation.
To write the story I conducted numerous phone interviews with various coalition members and current SU students and graduates who have been involved in aquatics research. I also spent a morning tromping through the stream in order to observe SU researchers temporarily electroshocking fish. Their goal: to see if the stream held trout—an indicator of enhanced water quality that triggers enhanced state protections. (It did.)
I pride myself in doing significant background research before I ever conduct an interview or go out into the field to report on a story. In this case, it paid off. Jonathan Niles, the FRI director and one of the researchers in the stream that day, later told one of my SU editors that he was impressed with how well I understood his team’s research program.
Before I decided majoring in English, I seriously considered forestry. That’s why I love writing about science, particularly regarding nature and the environment. I’m always stumbling upon fascinating information. For example, in writing about the river, I learned the following, which became part of the story:
“Its two branches also have distinct chemical signatures. Reflecting the legacy of acid-mine drainage, the West Branch is more acidic. The North Branch carries more sediment and nutrients—a result of agricultural runoff—which, in turn, nurtures oxygen-stifling algae.
“Interestingly, after the two branches meet at Sunbury, their waters flow like two distinct rivers side-by-side, without really mingling together, for about 40 miles. At that point, the Juniata River pours in from the west bank, and the three rivers flow side-by-side for another 10 miles until the rocks studding the river near Harrisburg finally churn the waters together.”
To read the Susquehanna Currents cover story, click here.
In addition, as I have done for the past five years, last fall I interviewed five alumni who were SU’s 2015 alumni award winners: Rick Dorman ’75, the president of Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pa.; Peter Arduini ’86, president and CEO of Integra LifeSciences, a $2.5 billion regenerative tissue and medical technology firm based in Plainsboro, N.J.; Michael Kling ’80, an award winning volunteer firefighter near West Point, N.Y.; Jeff Morgan, the immediate past president of the SU Alumni Association’s executive board; and Cassandra Smolcic ’06, a former Pixar Animation Studio designer who now works with Turner Duckworth, a national design firm based in San Francisco.
The interviews resulting in 350-word profiles that were multipurposed, appearing in the awards banquet program and, on SU’s website, as a supplement to much shorter versions that were published in Currents.
To view the alumni profiles, click here.