The North Dakota Water Resources Research Institute announced its Graduate Research Fellowship recipients for 2010-11. Fellowships ranging from $3,000 to $12,000 were awarded to seven doctoral students and three master's students conducting research in water resources areas.
Selection of student fellows and the award amounts are based on competitive proposals prepared by the students with the guidance of their advisers. Projects proposed for fellowship support should relate to water resources research issues in the state or region. Regional, state or local collaboration or co-funding is encouraged. Fellowships have a matching requirement of two non-federal dollars to one federal dollar. A panel of state water resource professionals reviews the proposals and selects the Fellows and award amounts based on the quality of proposals and the priority of the proposed projects for the state and region. The general criteria used for proposal evaluation include scientific merit, originality of research, research related to state and region and extent of regional, state or local collaboration and co-funding.
Funding for the fellowship program comes primarily from the annual base grant provided to the institute by the U.S. Geological Survey and an additional support of 15 percent of the base grant comes from the North Dakota State Water Commission. The institute is one of 54 located in a land-grant institution of each state and territory under the umbrella of National Institutes for Water Resources.
For more information, contact institute director G. Padmanabhan, professor of civil engineering, at 1-7043 or G.Padmanabhan@ndsu.edu or go to www.ndsu.edu/wrri.
Fellows, their advisers and fellowship research projects they are working on include:
Adam Guy, soil sciences, and Thomas DeSutter, "The Impact of Rural and Urban Flooding on Water and Soil Quality in the Red River Valley of the North"
Andrea Hanson, biological sciences, and Mark Sheridan, "Uptake and Effects of Environmental Estrogens on Growth of Fish"
Anusha Balangoda, environmental and conservation sciences, and Wei Lin, "Studies of Seasonal Succession of Cyanobacteria and Green algae at Heinrich-Martin Impoundment, North Dakota"
Brianna Schneck, biological sciences, John McEvoy and Mark Clark, "Source Tracking of Cryptosporidium in Rural Watersheds."
Dhritikshama Roy, civil engineering, and Achintya Bezbaruah, "Plant-based Biopolymers for Entrapping Metal Nanoparticles for Arsenic Removal: Biodegradation and Treatability Studies."
Dimuthu Wijeyaratne, environmental and conservation sciences, and Marinus Otte, "Chemical Fingerprinting of Sediments and Water of the Souris River for Identification of Diffuse Pollution Sources II."
Halis Simsek, civil engineering, and Eakalak Khan, "Fate of Biodegradable Dissolved Organic Nitrogen in Fargo Waste Water."
Harjyoti Kalita, materials and nanotechnology, Achintya Bezbaruah and Bret Chisholm, "Iron Imprinted Polymer for Removal and Monitoring of Arsenic."
Ishara Rijal, agriculture and biosystems engineering, and Xinhua Jia, "Reference Evapotranspiration and Actual Evapotranspiration Measurements in North Dakota."
Qigang Chang, environmental and conservation sciences, and Wei Lin, "Development of GAC-NZVI Adsorbent for Arsenic Removal."