Paige Varner, a fifth-year ITEHP student pursuing her PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering, was recently selected as a winner of the NIEHS Superfund Research Program’s K.C. Donnelly Externship Award. Through the K.C. Donnelly externship, Varner will be spending 3 months at Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL) in Dr. Joshua Michener’s lab. There she will work with Dr. Michener to develop assays that will to detect horizontal gene transfer of plasmids containing the genes for PAH degradation using fluorescence and flow cytometry. She also plans to develop a method to detect plasmid transfer in situ within contaminated sediments.
Visit the Superfund Research Program’s K.C. Donnelly page to read more about Varner’s work, along with the 10 other award winners.
Congratulations, Paige!
