Student Earns Goldwater Scholarship for Water Pollution Research
Since she enrolled at Vassar, Abigail Whittington ’23 has conducted independent research with faculty in the Earth Science and Chemistry departments, focusing on sources of water pollution. Whittington plans to continue this research after she graduates, and she has been rewarded for her work with a Barry Goldwater Scholarship that will underwrite some of the cost of her post-graduate education.
Established by Congress in 1986, the Goldwater Foundation provides scholarships to sophomores and juniors who intend to pursue careers in the natural sciences, mathematics, and engineering. Whittington, a chemistry major from Sandy, UT, was one of 417 students selected for the scholarship funding this year.
Photo courtesy of the subject
During her first year at Vassar, Whittington worked with Professor of Earth Science Jill Schneiderman on a project that examined the causes of water pollution in a nearby stream. Over the past two years she has collaborated with Associate Professor and Chair of Chemistry Alison Keimowitz on projects that examine how some potentially harmful elements leach into water supplies during hydraulic fracturing (commonly called fracking), a process that injects liquid at high pressure into subterranean rocks to extract oil or gas.
“It’s been proven that there can be a lot of toxic leaching during fracking,” Whittington said, “but we are examining exactly how this happens on a molecular level.”
Whittington is spending this summer conducting research at the Great Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve in Greenland, NH, under a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). She plans to specialize in chemical oceanography in graduate school and says the independent research she was able to do at Vassar had prepared her well for her post-graduate work. “The Chemistry Department has been fantastic in providing me with so many research opportunities,” Whittington said.