ABOUTMy name is Velvet Park and I am a recent graduate of the Environmental Studies program at California State University, Fullerton. For my thesis research I collaborated with the Orange County Sanitation District on a baseline study where I worked to characterize microplastics throughout the treatment process in an effort to estimate removal rates. Simultaneously, I sought to understand if the two most popular visual quantification techniques for microplastics in environmental samples, light and fluorescence microscopy, produced comparable results.
During this time I worked as a laboratory assistant at Southern California Coastal Water Research Project (SCCWRP) in the biogeochemistry and chemistry departments. At SCCWRP I gained valuable experience in water quality and microplastic related laboratory work, preparation and analyses of environmental documents, as well as communication and coordination between public agencies and research institutes. I chose to pursue a career in Environmental Science because I believe that we have a responsibility to understand the environmental systems that we depend upon. I am particularly interested in three broad topics: climate change mitigation, coastal ecosystem health, and environmental policy. Specifically, I hope to investigate the impact of human use (i.e. – physical land use, and/or pollutants) on the health of sensitive coastal ecosystems. I also place a high priority on science education and improved public science literacy. My passion for education and community outreach stems from my belief that it is extremely important to be able to translate current scientific research to understandable information that can be used effectively by non-scientists to develop policy and plan for the conservation and management of our natural resources. |