I am now the Microplastic Postdoctoral Fellow at the Seattle Aquarium (as of October). I am thrilled to develop and expand the aquarium’s anthropogenic research program in the Salish Sea, WA. While it is a bit odd to start a job during a pandemic, I have thoroughly enjoyed the conservation programs and partnership team and all of the work I have done so far.
I am mentoring two wonderful youth leaders through Plastic Tides, an organization seeking to “inspire and catalyze action toward a plastic-free future through adventure, education, and youth empowerment.” I am mentoring John, a junior from Lima, Peru, and Naomi, a senior from New York, USA.
John is conducting a research project measuring plastic accumulation on Marquez beach, one of the most polluted beaches in Peru. He is planning to use his findings to change local policies surrounding plastic disposal and pollution in Peru.
Naomi is carrying out a series of PPE collections in New York City, in order to reduce the increased PPE pollution during Covid-19. She is planning to implement collections in her school as well as building communities.
Read about plastic pollution, where it comes from, where it goes, and what we can do. In the middle of a pandemic and human rights movement, it’s hard to think about anything else, however, we must keep learning and moving forward. This article compiles a lot of information succinctly.
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I was invited to present and host a Q&A for Microplastic Madness, a feature film at the Seattle Children’s Film Festival. The theater was packed with all ages, ready to learn about how a 5th grade class in Brooklyn, NY is tackling the plastic problem.
I can honestly say that this is one of the best and informative films I have ever seen. Cafeteria Culture, an organization focused on engaging youth to achieve zero waste, produced this film with students from P.S. 15 Brooklyn 5th graders. The film is traveling around the United States as part of the Children’s film festival circuit– definitely check it out if it is coming to a city near you!
The students did a phenomenal job explaining the ins and outs of plastic pollution, from the production to consumer sides. The took the viewer along for field trips, class experiments, and even to City Hall to speak with Mayor de Blasio. These students enacted real change in their school, their homes, and even across New York City.
As part of introducing the film, I was asked some questions leading up to the showing. You can find my interview here.
I attended and presented my work on how microplastics impact the benthic-pelagic coupling role of marine mussels in February in San Diego, CA. This conference was by far the largest one I have been too. I presented in one of three(!) sessions focusing on microplastics, also a new experience for me.
I attended and presented my research at AAAS February in Seattle. The format was an E-Poster, something I have never made nor presented before. It was good practice to figure out how my entire dissertation fits together in one, VERY short, 7min presentation.
I participated as an invited speaker for the 2020 Action Network Speaker Series on plastic. I had the opportunity to teach 3rd graders at Chautauqua Elementary School on Vashon Island about marine biology, how different marine organisms ingest microplastics, and how microplastics can pass through different ocean habitats and trophic levels.
The 3rd graders were several decades younger than my usual audience and it was a fun challenge to create a single interactive & hands-on activity that spanned multiple concepts. Some students acted out roles as orcas and sea lions while others were worms and mussels. I’ll let you guess which animals they were more excited by!
This year, WSN was held in Ensenada, Mexico. On the beach. Needless to say, it was a wonderful “work” trip. I earned Best Student Presentation for Community/Ecosystem Ecology!!
I took advantage of the wonderful and warm location to travel down there early to get some beach and ocean time in. On Halloween, a group of us (6, never met before, all there for WSN) went SCUBA diving at two boat-access sites. It. Was. Phenomenal. Diving this trip, I was able to experience a lot of “firsts” — I dove in a kelp forest, saw mussels [pooping] underwater, and a sea hare! I even got to swim with my study system!
I presented my work on at Second Chance Brewery on quantifying microplastic contamination in the San Diego watersheds. Over the past few months I have been digesting, sorting, and analyzing microplastics from my trip to the San Diego region in May. Broadly, I found microplastic contamination differed between site both in quantity as well as type. Volcan Mountain Foundation, San Dieguito River Valley Conservency, and San Diego River Park Foundation did a phenomenal job attracting participants. Below is the abstract from my talk.
Title: Mciroplastic contamination across an urban gradient in the San Diego and San Dieguito watersheds
The Volcan Mountain Range Watershed is a key water source for San Diego and its water flows directly to the Pacific Ocean. It is vital to understand how the presence of microplastic in mountain watersheds can alter the dependent downstream communities. Over a long weekend in May (2019) Lyda travelled to Julien, CA to test microplastic contamination in the San Diego and San Dieguito watersheds. Over the course of her stay in Julien she drove 600 miles along twisting roads to access different points along the rivers. While there, Lyda met several volunteers that helped me sample water in eight different sites across the two watersheds, including the headwaters (in the mountains) and mouths (Pacific ocean) of both rivers. Through citizen science and outreach, participants received hands on experience with biology and pollution science. There were meaningful discussions with both local populations and urban communities about working collectively to find sustainable solutions to anthropogenic pollutants. In addition to watershed samples, tap water was also sampled to get an idea of human ingestion levels in the area. Back in Seattle, Lyda fully processed the samples, identified plastics under a microscope, and characterized types of debris. Facilitating discussions with local community members creates more environmentally aware populations and future generations, which in turn will create policies and behaviors that foster better stewardship of our resources.
My research on mussels and microplastics is featured in this month’s (October 2019) UW Arts & Sciences Newsletter! Read about it at the link below. The pictures are a great representation of how I spend my time– in the field, in the lab, and taking selfies with massive mussels.
https://artsci.washington.edu/news/2019-10/tiny-plastics-big-problems
Lyda Harris, PhD 
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