Joellen Russell featured in article on pandemic impacts on fieldwork

July 6, 2020

SOCCOM Modeling Lead Joellen Russell from the University of Arizona is featured in this article from  Chemical & Engineering News.

COVID-19 has disrupted fieldwork. Here’s how environmental chemists are coping

The pandemic has delayed environmental monitoring, but some scientists are finding ways to pivot

Katherine Bourzac

JUNE 28, 2020

Spring and summer are when many environmental scientists normally head into the field to collect data. That’s when it’s safe to summit a glacier high in the mountains to retrieve ice cores. It’s when nutrient runoff and weather patterns combine to trigger the toxic algal blooms that researchers track. And it’s when the rice that scientists monitor for arsenic ripens.

But this year is different. Around the globe, the COVID-19 pandemic has claimed countless lives, caused economic upheaval, and, for scientists who monitor our environment, thrown research programs into a tailspin. [read more]