Madelyn Percy, a Ph.D. student in Geological Sciences at UNC, was awarded a three-year National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to conduct her research in the Galapagos Islands.
To whom else has the NSF offered this prestigious fellowship? For starters, alumni include Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Steven Chu, the U.S secretary of energy and winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics; NASA scientist Amy Mainzer – throw in several more Nobel Prize winners, along with the odd best-selling author, and you get the picture.
Percy will be using the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship to conduct hydrological geology research, seeking to describe the chemical and physical changes that occur in soils across climate zones.
Percy will be expanding on the preliminary findings of previous research from the island of Santa Cruz (done by the Charles Darwin Research Station) by conducting pioneering soil research on the island of San Cristobal.
The implications of this unique research opportunity span beyond the Galapagos archipelago to include the tropics and other areas with hydrogeological conditions similar to San Cristobal’s.