#SpeirSquad News
March 2024
Congrats to master's student, Kathleen Cutting, for successfully passing her thesis proposal defense!
Speir Lab undergraduates, Brynnen Beck and Claire Meara, completed their first denitrification/respiration experiment. They are now analyzing samples using our MIMS.
The lab's nutrient analyzer is finally up and running - time to get started on analyzing the 3000+ samples we have collected over the past year and a half!
February 2024
Congrats to master's student, Caroline Anscombe, for passing her thesis proposal defense with flying colors!
The Speir Lab's membrane inlet mass spec (MIMS) is up and running! We are excited to start analyzing samples!
January 2024
Master's student, Caroline Anscombe, completed an experiment on the effects of road salts and eco-friendly alternatives on leaf litter decomposition. She spent 3 weeks at the University of Notre Dame, where her experiment was conducted in their recirculating stream mesocosm facility. Shout out to Abagael Pruitt, one of Jennifer Tank's PhD students, for her assistance with the project!
Undergraduate Honors Students Claire Meara, Brynnen Beck, and Jacob Major successfully passed their honors thesis proposal defenses this month!
Program Associate, Alana Strauss, was first author on an extension publication entitled "What is Water Quality?" Check it out here: https://www.uaex.uada.edu/publications/PDF/FSA9544.pdf
Congrats to master's student, Kathleen Cutting, for successfully passing her thesis proposal defense!
Speir Lab undergraduates, Brynnen Beck and Claire Meara, completed their first denitrification/respiration experiment. They are now analyzing samples using our MIMS.
The lab's nutrient analyzer is finally up and running - time to get started on analyzing the 3000+ samples we have collected over the past year and a half!
February 2024
Congrats to master's student, Caroline Anscombe, for passing her thesis proposal defense with flying colors!
The Speir Lab's membrane inlet mass spec (MIMS) is up and running! We are excited to start analyzing samples!
January 2024
Master's student, Caroline Anscombe, completed an experiment on the effects of road salts and eco-friendly alternatives on leaf litter decomposition. She spent 3 weeks at the University of Notre Dame, where her experiment was conducted in their recirculating stream mesocosm facility. Shout out to Abagael Pruitt, one of Jennifer Tank's PhD students, for her assistance with the project!
Undergraduate Honors Students Claire Meara, Brynnen Beck, and Jacob Major successfully passed their honors thesis proposal defenses this month!
Program Associate, Alana Strauss, was first author on an extension publication entitled "What is Water Quality?" Check it out here: https://www.uaex.uada.edu/publications/PDF/FSA9544.pdf
December 2023
Congrats to our three Fall 2023 graduates!! Deo Scott, Lilly (Stults) Shepard, and Ire Tamayo all graduated from the University of Arkansas Bumpers College with a B.S. in Environmental Soil and Water Science.
The undergraduates in the lab have been busy racking up grants to finish off the year!
The #SpeirSquad celebrated the holiday break with a cookie decorating party!
November 2023
New honors student, Brody Wilson, joined the #SpeirSquad. He will be working on the effects of construction on urban water quality.
The Speir Lab had two papers accepted: 1) Uncertainty in streamflow measurements significantly impacts estimates of downstream nitrate export was accepted in Environmental Research Letters. 2) Nested temporal dynamics of watershed concentration-discharge relationships was accepted in WIREs Water.
The #SpeirSquad celebrated Friendsgiving with a Battle of the Sides themed potluck!
Undergraduate Honors students, Claire Meara and Brynnen Beck, were both awarded Bumpers College Undergraduate Research and Creative Project grants. They will be working together on the effects of urban stream salinization on microbial denitrification and respiration in stream sediments.
October 2023
The new water year started on October 1st, so of course the #SpeirSquad had to celebrate! We had a potluck lunch to ring in the new hydrologic year and celebrate the kick off of new sampling efforts this month!
Master's student, Caroline, began sampling for the Fayetteville Urban Stream Sampling (FUSS) Project this month! She's sampling 20 sites across Fayetteville to assess spatial and temporal variability in urban water quality.
Shannon gave a seminar for the UArk Department of Biological Sciences Seminar Series.
September 2023
The #SpeirSquad was featured in a new article (https://aaes.uada.edu/news/speir-water-quality/) about the recently funded DOE grant. Graduate students Kathleen Cutting and Caroline Anscombe, as well as program associate Alana Strauss, got a shout out!
Shannon gave a seminar for the UArk Department of Geosciences Colloquium Series. She talked about climate impacts on water quality, featuring case studies from agricultural, intermittent, and Arctic streams.
Congrats to our three Fall 2023 graduates!! Deo Scott, Lilly (Stults) Shepard, and Ire Tamayo all graduated from the University of Arkansas Bumpers College with a B.S. in Environmental Soil and Water Science.
The undergraduates in the lab have been busy racking up grants to finish off the year!
- Claire Meara was awarded an Arkansas Division of Higher Education Student Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) for her work on the impacts of freshwater salinization on microbial respiration.
- Brynnen Beck was awarded a University of Arkansas Honors College Grant for her work on the impacts of freshwater salinization on denitrification in stream sediments.
- Jackie Todd was awarded a University of Arkansas Office of Undergraduate Research grant to document changes in ecosystem function in a restored and unrestored portion of Mullins Branch, an urban stream on campus.
The #SpeirSquad celebrated the holiday break with a cookie decorating party!
November 2023
New honors student, Brody Wilson, joined the #SpeirSquad. He will be working on the effects of construction on urban water quality.
The Speir Lab had two papers accepted: 1) Uncertainty in streamflow measurements significantly impacts estimates of downstream nitrate export was accepted in Environmental Research Letters. 2) Nested temporal dynamics of watershed concentration-discharge relationships was accepted in WIREs Water.
The #SpeirSquad celebrated Friendsgiving with a Battle of the Sides themed potluck!
Undergraduate Honors students, Claire Meara and Brynnen Beck, were both awarded Bumpers College Undergraduate Research and Creative Project grants. They will be working together on the effects of urban stream salinization on microbial denitrification and respiration in stream sediments.
October 2023
The new water year started on October 1st, so of course the #SpeirSquad had to celebrate! We had a potluck lunch to ring in the new hydrologic year and celebrate the kick off of new sampling efforts this month!
Master's student, Caroline, began sampling for the Fayetteville Urban Stream Sampling (FUSS) Project this month! She's sampling 20 sites across Fayetteville to assess spatial and temporal variability in urban water quality.
Shannon gave a seminar for the UArk Department of Biological Sciences Seminar Series.
September 2023
The #SpeirSquad was featured in a new article (https://aaes.uada.edu/news/speir-water-quality/) about the recently funded DOE grant. Graduate students Kathleen Cutting and Caroline Anscombe, as well as program associate Alana Strauss, got a shout out!
Shannon gave a seminar for the UArk Department of Geosciences Colloquium Series. She talked about climate impacts on water quality, featuring case studies from agricultural, intermittent, and Arctic streams.
August 2023
The #SpeirSquad welcomed two new Master's students to the lab: Caroline Anscombe & Kathleen Cutting. We're so happy to have them on the team!
The Speir Lab celebrated the start of a new school year with an ice cream party at Shannon's house!
Shannon received a grant from the Department of Energy to study the impacts of stream network expansion and contraction on downstream nutrient and sediment loss. This grant involves institutions from 5 other EPSCoR states, including University of New Hampshire, University of Alabama, University of Oklahoma, University of New Mexico, and University of Nevada-Reno. Dr. Alex Webster from University of New Mexico will serve as the project's lead. For more information, see the press release here.
Two new #SpeirSquad publications are out! One article, published in Biogeochemistry, focuses on nitrous oxide production in streams, while the other article, published in Water Resources Research, revisits the origins of a commonly used model for assessing concentration-discharge relationships.
The #SpeirSquad welcomed two new Master's students to the lab: Caroline Anscombe & Kathleen Cutting. We're so happy to have them on the team!
The Speir Lab celebrated the start of a new school year with an ice cream party at Shannon's house!
Shannon received a grant from the Department of Energy to study the impacts of stream network expansion and contraction on downstream nutrient and sediment loss. This grant involves institutions from 5 other EPSCoR states, including University of New Hampshire, University of Alabama, University of Oklahoma, University of New Mexico, and University of Nevada-Reno. Dr. Alex Webster from University of New Mexico will serve as the project's lead. For more information, see the press release here.
Two new #SpeirSquad publications are out! One article, published in Biogeochemistry, focuses on nitrous oxide production in streams, while the other article, published in Water Resources Research, revisits the origins of a commonly used model for assessing concentration-discharge relationships.