CEINT CSSC Exchange Program Sends Marie Simonin to Baylor University

By Benjamin Castellon

The CEINT Scholar Steering Committee was pleased to bring Dr. Marie Simonin to Baylor University for a visit and to give a seminar this spring as part of its CSSC Scholar Exchange Program initiative. Marie is a second-year postdoctoral associate in the Department of Biology at Duke University and led the most recent mesocosm experiments at the Duke Forest facility, completed in October 2016. Marie’s work bridges freshwater ecology and aquatic ecotoxicology by examining microbial and ecosystem-level endpoints at the nexus between those two fields. She is especially interested in the interaction of chemical and non-chemical stressors driving global change.

Marie Simonin Marie gave a one job-length format seminar to dozens of Baylor undergraduates, grad students, research scientists and faculty in Biology, Environmental Science, Biomedical Studies, and Chemistry & Biochemistry. She presented her results to date from the most recent wetland and terrestrial mesocosm studies in a seminar titled “Interactive effects of nutrient pollution and nanomaterials on ecosystem functioning: Insights from wetland and terrestrial mesocosm experiments”.

In addition to giving her seminar, Marie met one-on-one with six Baylor faculty from the Departments of Biology and Environmental Science to interact and discuss research. During her visit she also was able to meet with her current mesocosm collaborators at Baylor for an update on research progress, plans and discuss important topics such as statistical analysis of data.

This was overall a very fruitful visit and a major success for the CEINT Scholar Steering Committee’s Scholar Exchange Program.