Congratulations Viviana!

Viviana Penuela received a McKnight Doctoral Fellowship award, for tuition and stipend support for three years. Viviana’s successful proposal described her plan to investigate how the growing use of reclaimed water alters the chemical composition of soil, and may thereby affect soil microbiology, physics, and ultimately carbon and nitrogen sequestration. The title of her project was “Influences of reclaimed water irrigation on microbial processes and aggregates formation in urban soils,” an example of basic biogeochemistry set in an urban context. Viviana will conduct a comparative study between lawn management strategies (reclaimed vs. aquifer water irrigation) in urban soils. The samples will be taken from residential lawns irrigated with reclaimed water and from those irrigated with potable water. She will compare physical and microbial properties of the soil to better understand the effect of reclaimed water irrigation soil carbon and nutrient storage.