Biology students win Roozen Awards for research
Two Lakeland University biology students were honored by LU’s science faculty with the fourth annual Roozen ’66 Undergraduate Research Award in honor of the late Professor Allen Wangemann ’55.
The Roozen award is given to the best original scientific research presented at Lakeland’s Undergraduate Research and Scholarship Symposium which took place on April 15.
This year’s winners were Livy Heling, a senior biology major from West Bend, Wis., and Gretchen Augustine, a junior biology major from Kiel, Wis., for their research project titled "Effects of aqueous exposure of trifluoroacetate on reproduction and growth in Daphnia magna and Chlamydomonas reinhardtii." Lakeland Professor of Biology Paul Pickhardt was also part of the research team.
Heling and Augustine will split the $2,000 prize.
Heling and Augustine designed a project to investigate the sublethal effects of Trifluoroacetic Acid (TFA) on freshwater organisms. TFA is a very short-chained PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances which are sometimes referred to as "forever chemicals" due to their persistence in the environment).
“TFA is by far the most abundant PFAS in the environment, but there is relatively little known about how such short-chained PFAS impact and accumulate within freshwater phytoplankton and zooplankton,” Pickhardt said.
“TFA is commonly measured at very low concentrations in drinking water, and it accumulates in human blood, though little is known about the effects of such low-dose, chronic exposures to this kind of PFAS.”
Heling plans to attend the Medical College of Wisconsin to pursue a PhD in neuroscience. Augustine will return to Lakeland for her senior year.
As a Lakeland student, the late Kenneth Roozen, Ph.D., was inspired by the late Allen Wangemann, a longtime, popular biology professor at Lakeland, to study biology, conduct undergraduate research and pursue post-graduate work. He later obtained his master’s and doctoral degrees in cellular biology and molecular genetics.
This inspiration led Roozen to a lifelong career in academic research and administration leadership throughout his tenure at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the Medical University of South Carolina.
The award is intended to instill and inspire Lakeland students with the spirit of Wangemann, who created a tradition of original undergraduate science research at Lakeland.
