Steve Powers, associate researcher in the School of the Environment, received the Gene Likens Award for last year’s Nature Geoscience paper, “Long-term accumulation and transport of anthropogenic phosphorus in three river basins.” The award “recognizes work conducted by an early career scientist (within five years of receiving a Ph.D.) for work conducted after the completion of graduate school.” A common element in fertilizer, phosphorus often runs into waterways, leading to algae blooms and oxygen-deprived “dead zones.”
Powers was lead author of the Nature Geoscience paper, a landmark in estimating on a large scale how phosphorus flows through the environment over many decades.
Find out more https://news.wsu.edu/2017/10/17/wsu-researchers-honored-by-ecological-society-of-america/