Episode 32: PPIRA in Action: From Microplastics Research to Community Impact
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[00:00:00] Michael Donovan: Welcome to the Evidence to Impact podcast, the podcast that brings together academics and their research partners to talk about insights and real-world policy solutions in Pennsylvania and beyond. I'm Michael Donovan, the associate director of the Evidence to Impact Collaborative here at Penn State. In this episode, we'll be discussing the PPI-RA program in action, from microplastics research to community impact. My guests today are Dr. Jill Felker, visiting assistant professor of biology at Dickinson College, and previously teaching assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Penn State Berks, as well as two of her wonderful student researchers, Chantel Duarte and Vinh Lu Before I introduce our guests and give them a moment to introduce themselves I do wanna give a little bit of a topper for our audience on the Presidential Public Impact Research Awards program, which we're very much a part of as at the Evidence to Impact Collaborative. Today, we're gonna talk a bit about the program itself, and really zone in on one of our project teams. We call them impact teams. This program was developed through a partnership with the Office of the President of Penn State, President Bendapudi, the Office of Senior Vice President for Research, Andrew Read and our unit, the Evidence to Impact Collaborative. This initiative really emerges from work that we've done in past administrations with the White House Office of Science Technology Policy and the Office of Management and Budget, as well as with our partners at The Pew Charitable Trusts Evidence Project, as well as other members of the, broader research funding community. These partnerships really are designed to support research initiatives that tackle societal challenges that are utilizing collective expertise to maximize the impact of research on public welfare broadly defined. The work broadly is thought of as public impact research utilizing the definition offered by the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, APLU. And this program of Penn State faculty student teams have been partnering with community organizations across Pennsylvania to address locally identified challenges. So these range from health access, to food security and public safety, to education, responsible technology use. And in this case today some really interesting work in microplastics. PPIRA supports community engaged and evidence-informed research that connects Penn State expertise and student participation with the knowledge, priorities, and experience of our community partners throughout Pennsylvania. So with that, I will give the floor to our first guest Dr. Jill Felker. Jill, welcome to the show. Could you give us a bit of a, a background on the genesis of the, the microplastics project and its focus on the Delaware River Watershed in Reading? 

[00:02:52] Jill Felker: Thank you, Michael, so much for having me come talk about this research. The genesis of this or the beginning of this happened when I work with Dr. Dr. Tami Mysliwiec at Penn State Berks in the Emerging Contaminants Research Group. And we actually started a project with antibiotic-resistant bacteria or microbes in the environment, and we actually saw some microplastics in some of those samples when we were filtering, and we were like, "Hey, those aren't supposed to be here. Why are those here?" And then we started asking some questions, and we reached out to one of my mentors when going through my dissertation graduate school Dr. Shirley Clark at Penn State Harrisburg, who's an amazing hydrologist. And she's like, "Nope, microplastics shouldn't be in there." So we started asking a little bit more questions, and then we found Dr. Lisa Ameli from Altoona, who is one of the leading researchers in freshwater microplastic research now. And that's where this collaboration started, and just at, at the same time, the PPIRA came about, and it just all worked together. So we put the project together. We've been collaborating ever since. 

[00:04:15] Michael Donovan: Wonderful. And I'd love to hear from a wonderful group of your student researchers as well. Maybe we'll start with you, Vinh, if you wanna tell us a little bit about what first interested you in getting involved in this project, and a little bit about yourself as well. 

[00:04:29] Vinh Lu: Sure. I'm Vinh. I'm a biology graduate from Penn State. So I was very fortunate to be a part of Dr. Felker project. I remember during our introductory biology class with her, when we cover microbiology sections, she mentioned about this project and point out that one of the sample sites was at Blue Marsh. I was like, "Wow, I go to Blue Marsh all the time, but I have no idea what's actually in the water." So that curiosity really pulled me in, and as we got deeper into it, I found the project to be very interesting, and I really enjoy studying it. 

[00:05:10] Michael Donovan: Excellent. Thank you. And Shantelle. 

[00:05:15] Shantelle Duarte: Hi, I'm Shantelle. I graduated a year ago with a biochemistry and molecular biology degree, and I started getting involved because a previous group leader for the project and then the antibiotic resistant project was actually going up to UP, and she found me and she explained to me what was going on, and I became very interested in it. And the more I worked with Dr. Felker and Dr. Mysliwiec, the more involved I became

[00:05:50] Michael Donovan: Wonderful. Thank you, and welcome both of you to the show, and thank you for coming out of your busy lives as graduates of Penn State. We're very proud of you. And we're gonna hear a lot more from you , as we go through the episode here. But going back to Jill, you brought up a little bit how there was a surprise coming from the identifying microplastics in a sample that you weren't expecting it to be in. So maybe for our listeners, why is studying microplastics important for Pennsylvania communities? 

[00:06:20] Jill Felker: Unfortunately, We don't know a lot about microplastics in freshwater environments, not just in Pennsylvania, but particularly in Pennsylvania. So this research is really important to figure out , where those microplastics are coming from and what they do actually once they hit the environment. Are they affecting the plants, the animals? We're specifically studying Blue Marsh Lake, which is a very popular recreational facility. They're just like what Vinh was saying. A lot of people go there. Over 900,000 people visit Blue Marsh Lake and the surrounding area every year, and so there's a lot of fishing and swimming and boating that happens there. So looking at what those microplastics are doing in that water and what happens ecologically , as those microplastics move through the watershed. Because Blue Marsh is actually a water source for drinking water supplies for communities downstream

[00:07:26] Michael Donovan: And could you give a little bit of a rundown of some of the findings that you've had? And we'll talk about the continuation of , this effort of work as well. But I want to hear about that. Particularly how it relates to public health and drinking water. It's very concerning to have found this in the sample, I'm sure. 

[00:07:42] Jill Felker: Yeah, so we have lots and lots of microplastics. So we identified hundreds of microplastics in each of our samples which was a little surprising and concerning. We also came up with a new methodology of isolating microbes that hasn't been previously published. And Vinh and Shantelle are a part of those, those findings and helping to find that methodology. We've found not so friendly microbes and bacteria that like to hide out or hitchhike on top of those, plastics. And we've isolated them. We've found that about 80% of them are antibiotic resistant to at least one antibiotic, which is really concerning

[00:08:33] Michael Donovan: And I'll open it up for Shantel and Vinh to chime in. Are there any things that surprised you besides these concerning findings? It just in terms of the methodology that you established. I also wanna talk a little bit more about your leadership roles in, the project. But anything that surprised you right off the bat

[00:08:51] Vinh Lu: Yes, I think it's real interesting that we do this research in a lake that very well-known to the local, but not much know about microplastic in there, and surprisingly we found quite a lots of microplastic in this water body. To me, I think the most interesting part of this whole project as well is how much fun we had doing this project. As college student, we didn't realize s- what research could look like, and we thought it would be very intense. And of course, we worked really hard for it, but we also had so much fun learning through this process, finding out what methodology we should follow. Like Dr. Felker said, there wasn't well-known method to collect microplastic from fresh water, so we find different way and approach from different literatures and find our own approach to this. And I think that's really cool as we learn to go through this

[00:09:50] Shantelle Duarte: Definitely I have to agree with Vinh there. It was definitely an experience coming in, and I didn't have any research background at all. So coming in and basically starting a project from scratch and building on top of a project that already existed was a challenge on its own. But like Vinh said, it sounds intimidating at the beginning , but it was very fun. And Dr. Frank was very Nice and very welcoming, so it made everything feel very nice and chill. But even though it was chill, we were still able to do some crazy critical thinking where we developed the hypothesis, and we had to pivot a lot of times , both within the microplastics team, the antibiotic resistance team, whenever certain samples would grow or we couldn't filter certain microplastics and things like that. It was definitely surprising to get the amount of microplastics we saw, but it was also surprising to see once we started communicating to the community the level of microplastics , It was surprising to see how nobody was really aware of what microplastics were. And maybe because we had spent like six, seven months already learning about it, and we were like, "what do you mean?" But once we started communicating that, we realized that there really was no awareness of it, and it was cool to bring that out to the community. 

[00:11:41] Michael Donovan: excellent. And A really wonderful segue because I do wanna talk about community connection. The PPIRA program has multiple facets but we're trying to find in what way can we better connect the outputs of our research universities with the needs of the populations that we serve and in the communities that we serve. And I love hearing the student experiences and the enriching ways that you've been able to be exposed to different research backgrounds. But I'd love to talk a little bit about how you engaged with the community partner that is a feature of the PPIRA program. One for our listeners a real authentic co-creation of a kind of a research agenda is really a requirement of the program. So we want to go into the programs from the offset with a partner in mind as well. So, Jill, maybe if you wanted to talk about the partner and the engagement with the partner 

[00:12:38] Jill Felker: Sure. So we partnered with the Department of Conservation Natural Resources specifically with the Nolde Education and Environmental Education Center. They have environmental educators that are absolutely amazing humans and also really great to work with. And I've worked with them previously when I was trying to take my research and be able to talk to the public. Sometimes it's hard for scientists to talk to the general public 'cause you have this really complex methodologies that you're trying to talk about, where these education specialists are, are really good and nicely telling me "You need to change what you're saying, so that everybody understands what you're talking about." And they gave me the opportunity to do several presentations. I did meet the scientists throughout Berks County. And then when we had COVID, it was pretty much all over the state that we were talking to communities. And so when this came up as a, a possibility of a community partner I didn't hesitate. I was just like "I wanna work with the DCNR and specifically the Nolde specialists." And they helped this entire process. And I'm excited because over the summer we got to analyze some of these results and I am going to have a conversation with them again to see if we can do some more programming

[00:14:06] Michael Donovan: Excellent. The program is really aiming for bidirectional conversations that our research teams can have with, with community partners to address challenges as challenges morph through new realities. I'd love to talk to Vinh and Shantelle a little bit about their roles in kind of leadership with the various student groups that you were a part of and what that did for you as a student. If there are skills that you had to scramble for and hone quickly. And hopefully, if there's anything that you've taken with you as you've moved on from Penn State. Anything around, around those? I can open up to either of you. 

[00:14:45] Shantelle Duarte: I definitely had to develop some quick skills. I had a decent size group of students that I was working with. I had at one point, one semester, I believe I had 13 students working with me, and it was definitely empowering to see how many students were interested in the antibiotic resistance side of the project. And it was cool to see that even though I had to develop these skills of communication quickly. Like I had to make sure everybody was on the same page in a way that everybody would still get along because they're different personalities. everyone has their different way of doing things, but we want to still make sure that things are getting done and that we're working together as a team. So proving to myself that I can mediate that kind of environment was very cool. And I will say it was hard, but it was very fulfilling , And I still use those skills of communication that I gained then now at work because I work at a laboratory testing drug potencies and our team is fairly large. Although I'm not managing, we are a very diverse group of people, and we're constantly trying to develop better ways to do certain things within the team . So because of those communication skills I gained as a leader, I can now transfer them to my everyday living, which is really nice. It was also really cool to see how even though I wasn't in the lab doing research with these students every day, they were still able to work together and get the work done, which was awesome. And I, at the end of every week, I would get together with everybody and discuss the results that we got for that week, and it was very cool to see that collaboration 

[00:16:49] Michael Donovan: I love having a skill kind of honed that perhaps is outside of the domain of the actual research project, right? Thinking about the biologic and research methods training that you receive, but also some really good science communication skills, interpersonal management, empathy, compassion for your team members and navigating complex relationships. Those are life skills right there, for sure. Vinh, anything from you?

[00:17:15] Vinh Lu: Yeah. So I feel like this opportunity was definitely a challenge, but also an honor. So I feel like trying to coordinate the schedule for everyone as student is quite challenging because everyone have classes, work, clubs, and other commitment as well. But I really appreciate everyone really being flexible and work together to put in a schedule to get our work done, and also to enjoy from that schedule as well. As I said through this process, Dr. Felker and my team members, everyone really helped me develop my leadership skill. I feel like that a skill that I'm going to learn and continue to learn throughout my career, and that experience really helped part of it too. Even now as an ophthalmic technician, two of the skill that, I still use every day is communications and critical thinking. I think to learn to communicate something a bit more complex to people who have not heard about that concept often is a skill. Also, to look at these informations and ask, "What are they telling me, and what they guiding me toward?" is another skill that this opportunity really teach me to. To look, oh, I see these piece of information. So what are they fitting together, and what I'm trying making meaning out of it? So that is a part research really taught me about

[00:18:47] Michael Donovan: Yeah we often hear about the value of experiential knowledge and the way we can synthesize the learnings from classroom settings into your daily life. And we're always trying to find ways to expand and engage on that. Thankfully we're really grateful for the leadership from President Bendapudi and Senior Vice President Reed in really encouraging the experiential learning components of this program. We've really made that a requirement to try to expand on these opportunities because it can go so far in synthesizing. From a, a instructor's point of view, Jill, what did you see about the value of the experiential learning and how that can apply in settings? I know that you're starting the semester now with a combination of lab and classroom settings. So maybe just a word on your experience in hands-on learning opportunities. 

[00:19:43] Jill Felker: I always have my students do engaging activities, especially in lab work. And also if a student knows that there's a real world implication to what they're researching or what they're studying I feel like it hits them better, right? It stays with them longer. And taking our research that is really impactful for public health and the community that surrounds the area that we're testing really helps I think in that experience. And especially working at Penn State Berks working in the watershed that surrounded it and the students were living, working, and going to the areas that we were studying. And I think that's really impactful. 

[00:20:33] Michael Donovan: And it's an extra feature of the wonderful system of Commonwealth campuses that Penn State has distributed and embedded within communities all over the Commonwealth. I'd love to talk a little bit about where this work is going and, what are some of the outputs of the the project and we're looking back on it and being retrospective, but, in what ways has this continued? Maybe Jill, if you wanted to chime in?

[00:21:00] Jill Felker: So on the academic side we're in the process of finishing our publication for the methodology. I have a meeting today about it. So that's gonna be off for publication hopefully relatively soon. We have a bigger paper from the results of all the students' hard work is probably going to be out by this winter. So there's publications that are coming. We've been to many different conferences, academic conferences, Ecological Society of America. We've been to the Society of Freshwater Science. We were just at the American Chemical Association 'cause they're interested in what our findings are with microplastics. And I've given many talks Nolde Forest at the educational center talking to the public that lives around Reading, lives around the watershed that we're studying. And I've also had Master Watershed Stewart Talks. Vinh was also a part of some of those talks at Nolde Forest. And they absolutely loved him, Vinh talking about the research that he was doing. We are currently starting to move towards expanding this research. So we were working specifically in the one watershed, Blue Marsh. We are now opening that up to Carlisle area, which is near Dickinson College where I am now. And now that kinda opens up some resources for us because now we're starting to look in the Chesapeake Bay area. And that's a bigger, if not more impactful watershed to study. So we're gonna start looking , We have the same collaboration , with the original collaborators from different Commonwealth campuses except now we're expanding to look and see and do a comparison between Blue Marsh and what's happening in Carlisle.

[00:22:57] Michael Donovan: It's amazing. Such a wide array of outputs and activities. And great to hear that the scholarly write-ups of the project and methodology are continuing along. Have there been any opportunities for proposals that continue this work . I think that is one of the, the key things we're hoping to support in the program, thinking about how to really grow extramural grant activity. Anything on that, Jill, in terms of proposals out or potentials? 

[00:23:27] Jill Felker: So we were waiting for the publication, but we were open to funding. So if anybody would like to fund us, we would love it. We have the Sustainability Center at Dickinson College has funded for me to work with some students there for this semester and next semester. That pocket of money is going to be getting those students up to speed to what the research group in Penn State Berks is doing currently. But we'd still collaborate back and forth with that. We have attempted some funding but with budget cuts We haven't gotten anything yet. But we would love to look into foundation funding if that's available. 

[00:24:11] Michael Donovan: And expanding the aperture slightly to be towards the Chesapeake Bay, that may also open up your opportunities or targets there as well which might be fruitful. And from Shantelle and Vin's perspectives, now that you're out from undergrad successfully past that, that wonderful stage of your lives, what else have you taken from this project into your current lives and your plans going forward Anything to chime in? I know you talked about some skills, but anything that has influenced maybe your own trajectory?

[00:24:46] Shantelle Duarte: So for me specifically, research became a very big part of my life. I started doing research sophomore year, first semester, and my first year and part of my sophomore year were not the best. I was juggling a lot of things. I was a commuter. I was working part-time. I had some home responsibilities that I had to work with, and my studies suffered because of that. But once I started doing research, I learned a lot of time management skills that helped me divvy up my time in the way that everything would work out . So once I started doing research, everything just ended up improving for me studies included . And because of that, in my career, I hope to be doing some kind of clinical research in some way, hence why I'm applying to a master's This coming fall for the fall of 2027 to do a biomedical science master's. And I have Dr. Felker and Dr. Mysliwiec to thank for giving me the chance to do research with them And they definitely helped me develop the skills I need and to believe in myself to be able to do the things I'm doing now. so it's definitely very cool to see that something that I'd never thought of growing up to seeing the impact it has on my life now. 

[00:26:13] Vinh Lu: yeah, I think research has really make my undergrad experience totally much better than I could expect it. I think it's really helped me understand these concept of laboratory techniques or anything that we learn from classes. They come in together and fit really well and help me, oh, this is why we study this, even though we suffer through the exams. That make up for it. But it's really make the whole experience of undergrad study enjoyable and get to know the people around me, such as Dr. Felker, Dr. Mysliwiec, and my team, Shantelle. Everyone really helped me have a really wonderful experience at Penn State Berks. Also really helped me look at research differently. My goal is to become physicians. Now I see that research really help what guide a physician decision to make these healthcare decision for the patients and how they approach future care as well. So it truly transform how I study and also think critically moving forward. So yes, I really enjoy this. 

[00:27:29] Michael Donovan: I have to follow up here with Jill. As an educator and as a scientist, getting to be here with two of your students, what does this feel like for you? What makes you the most proud of these two and the broader community that you serve? 

[00:27:43] Jill Felker: I'm so proud of both of them. When we started this project, I remember sitting down with both of them and saying "Hey, nobody's ever done this before, but you're going to help me do it." And they both looked at me like, "Okay." But their determination and hard work throughout that entire process w- was graduate level work. So I asked them , to do the impossible, and they came through with new methodologies, new techniques and also some amazing work that we found. And when I say that they make me proud, like I get choked up a little bit because of how well and how confident they have become. I remember first year students or sophomore year students without confidence, and I see them now, and I am beyond proud. 

[00:28:38] Michael Donovan: I love it. I love to hear these, wonderful stories. And, reflecting on the engagement with PPIRA the program itself any thoughts on how the experience was and, pros, cons, how we could improve it from your perspective, from all of your perspectives?

[00:28:57] Jill Felker: The PPIRA gave us the opportunity to put this project together. , We wouldn't have found funding to be able to do the work that we did in the timeframe that we did and be with the students in the timeframe before they graduated. I think that was , a huge impact on my research and the publications that we're going to be coming out with and also being able to talk to the community, so that funding really helped. It helped students to actually get paid for their work during the summer that usually I'm either requesting volunteers or trying to work through a whole bunch of work schedules because at the Commonwealth Campuses most of our students have to work a part-time job or they're doing a whole bunch of other activities trying to meet those family needs that they might have as a commuter student. 

[00:29:55] Michael Donovan: And any reflections from Shantel and Vinh? I know that your engagement with the program itself is limited to probably our student surveys. But any thoughts on the structure and how we could improve it? 

[00:30:08] Vinh Lu: I think the program really give us a lots of freedom and creativity how we do the, the work here. So we not just only do the work in the lab, but we also go out to community, have these presentations and talk to community about these problems and how we can improve such systematics issues together. And I think that make the experience much difference because we get to talk to community and people about microplastic and help them realize how they can reduce the microplastic in environment in the first place from their just very small habits. And I think that's make huge change when many of us make that small habits together. And I think this project really allow us to think differently, And do differently. 

[00:31:02] Shantelle Duarte: I have to agree with Vinh there 100%, and with Dr. Felker as well. I was one of those students that I had to work during the summer to cover tuition for the following fall. So being able to conduct research and get paid for it was a wonderful opportunity because I loved doing this project. So with this program, I was able to continue doing that. And during that summer where we were doing this research, I learned a lot of things, and I spent a lot of time in the lab pivoting and developing my techniques and communicating with other people, my family specifically , since they didn't know why I was going out every day. And it wasn't work, it was, "Oh, you're going to school? It's the summer. Why are you going to school?" So I was able to communicate with them the importance of what this project meant, and even now they ask me like , "Hey, what's going on with that project you did?" I'm like, "Hey, it still sucks out there, but we're trying to bring the awareness to people," and it is working. People have been asking me like, "Hey, what should we be doing differently? What do you think should be changing out there?" So people are invested, and that's something really cool that this project and this program brought to my life and to the world. 

[00:32:32] Michael Donovan: Wonderful. Thank you both for your reflections on the program. That feedback is so incredibly valuable and will be incorporated as we move forward. I did wanna give Jill the opportunity to talk about, the next phase of this work , in her role at Dickinson and also how this line of research can be expanded in future. 

[00:32:54] Jill Felker: So now I'm currently working with ALARM, which is the Alliance for Aquatic Resource Monitoring. That is a nonprofit that's connected to Dickinson College. We have started working with them, and they have been great with sampling for us around Carlisle and the, the surrounding area. So they have been our liaison with the community, too, so we're starting to build , some communication with the Carlisle area. They have been monitoring this watershed for the last 30 years, so we have a lot of data that we can look back on any changes that we find. 

[00:33:35] Michael Donovan: Excellent. It's wonderful to see that it's continuing, and I'm sure if you are looking for some more co-authors you've got two of them right in front of you for the next work as they move on to their busy lives and careers Well, I think I might just give a, a brief moment on some news that we have out of the PPIA program itself. But I'm very happy to announce that we have had continued support from the office of President Bendapudi, the office of Senior Vice President for Research, Andrew Reed, as well as the, the Evidence to Impact Collaborative to continue and expand the model of the PPIA program. Very shortly we'll have a broader announcement for eight Penn State faculty student teams that are in the same way that our wonderful team here coordinated with community organizations across Pennsylvania to address locally identified challenges. We're continuing to expand that across a range of disciplines community partnerships. We're ranging it. We're expanding it from five impact teams to eight in this next cohort. Some of these projects are highly reactive to the exigencies of the day. We have a project related to advancing AI health literacy among older adults in Pennsylvania. We have a youth participatory action research program on health equity in northern Philadelphia through mobile clinics. And we have one very close to, you all on leveraging a water quality monitoring program to improve detection of harmful algal blooms, among a variety of others. So we're very excited to have the next round going forward. And , as mentioned before very importantly for , the program itself, we are continuing to rigorously evaluate this mechanism as , a way to have universities provide incentives and structures and award programs to valorize that this kind of work is important, and it's important for our communities and how it can be immediately useful to our community members themselves. As I've mentioned, I've been calling them cohorts. We have, a randomized wait list control design in our program, so we have another cohort of eight teams that will be starting their activity next year as well. The next 16 teams will be coming through. So we're very happy to have this supported and continued throughout. I'm also very happy to announce that, we have started to write up some of the scholarly findings from our evaluation of cohort one and two. It will be featured in an upcoming special issue of the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. When that is out, we'll be sure to let our listeners know and our impact teams of course know as well that some of the broader findings have been elucidated for use by the broader sector. So we need to think about how other universities and systems could implement good ideas that they're finding out. We really see that , this microplastics project , that Dr. Felker and Vinh and Shantelle and many other student partners and faculty partners took part in, and community partners of course with DCNR and others truly shows how PPIRA can turn research into community impact while really focusing on giving students the kind of meaningful hands-on experience to hone skills that may not be directly related to even the syllabus of the class, right? Or the project aims. Thinking about personal inner communication skills and perspective taking. So really interesting ways there. With this new cohort now underway and the next one coming and hopefully future ones as well, this work impact continues. So I really wanna thank all of you for your time today for this rich and meaningful conversation. We'll be sure to include resources and links to some of the topics discussed in our show notes for the episode. And items for bios and how to get in touch with folks if anyone has a, big grant opportunity to hand over to everyone, they can find you that way. And I just wanna thank again my guests. We had Dr. Jill Felker, visiting assistant professor of biology at Dickinson College, and previously teaching assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Penn State Berks. And our wonderful student researchers, and now off into their next steps and trajectory in life, Shantelle Duarte and Vinh Lu. Thank you all so much for your time today.