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Waterville, Maine – Welcome to Colby Athletics’ summer spotlight series, where we take a look into what Colby student-athletes are working on over the summer break. Up next we have rising sophomore Ella Novion of Colby Women’s Tennis.
This summer Ella has been working at Colby as a research assistant for the 7 Lakes Alliance and the King Lab in the chemistry department, where they focus on water quality in the Belgrade Lakes. The research lab includes a team of six students who work together, each with a slightly different focus. For example, some of the other students focus on the streams, nutrients, zooplankton, and chlorophyll.
Ella’s primary summer project focuses on lake sediments. About one day a week, she goes out on one or more of the Belgrade Lakes, collecting water and/or sediment samples. Ella is testing various sediment extraction samples to determine the concentration of aluminum, iron, and phosphorus using an Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES). The goal is to determine the appropriate amount of aluminum for a future alum treatment in one of the lakes (North Pond), in order to sequester the phosphorus in the lake and prevent an algal bloom. In addition, Ella presented the progress of her research at CUSRR and at the 7 Lakes Alliance at the end of July.
“It has been rewarding and exciting to apply my chemistry studies to support academic research benefiting the community,” said Novion. “I have learned so much from Professor King and the rest of the research lab. And in my downtime, I have enjoyed exploring the local area with other students here over the summer, including many trips to the Hume Center, and playing tennis with members of the Maine tennis community.”
Be on the lookout for more of our summer spotlight series.