William Gerhard, a senior UNC Biology major, has been awarded the inaugural Mingma Norbu Sherpa Fellowship. Gerhard worked on water quality research at the Galapagos Science Center for the last two summers with faculty mentor Dr. Jill Stewart, and will continue his research in UNC’s Master of Science in Public Health program during the coming year.
The fellowship award will allow him to return to the Galapagos this summer and extend his research with microbial and physical analyses of the water infrastructure systems there. His research is an important component of the Galapagos Science Center’s efforts to understand and improve water quality in the archipelago, which has a major impact on human and ecological well-being there.