It’s rare when one email can completely change your life. But that is exactly what happened for recent Temple graduate Maxwell Finnegan when he heard he had received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, which will allow him to get his PhD in Environmental Engineering at UCLA.
“I almost couldn’t believe it when I opened the email. It means so much to me,” said Finnegan, who graduated in May with a degree in Environmental Science with a concentration in Hydrology from the Department of Earth and Environmental Science in the College of Science and Technology. “When I was waiting for the results of my application, I was applying for something like five jobs a day while also thinking about maybe applying to a master’s program; just going out into the field doing the work and working my way up. I didn’t think I’d be able to go right into research upon graduating.”
According to the National Science Foundation, the purpose of the Graduate Research Fellowship Program is to “help ensure the quality, vitality and strength of the scientific and engineering workforce of the United States.”
“NSF actively encourages the submission of applications from the full spectrum of talent that the US has to offer,” according to the grant information. “The five-year Fellowship provides three years of financial support, including an annual stipend of $37,000.”
The Research Fellowship, Finnegan said, “has completely changed the trajectory of my career.”’
“I’m relatively young to be pursing a PhD. It’s going to allow me to try to break into academia at a much earlier point in my career and I feel very lucky because of that,” said Finnegan, who also minored in City and Regional Planning while at Temple. “At this point, I’d like to remain in research and pursue a tenure track position after I graduate.”
Turning back the clock to when Finnegan first began at Temple, he said his career path wasn’t quite so crystal clear.
“Coming in, I really didn’t have a specific idea of what I wanted to do as a career. In my first semester, I took a geology class and began to realize I was interested in the STEM side of things, and I knew I wanted a career that gave me opportunities to work outside,” he said. “As a native Philadelphian, I’ve always been around Temple graduates and Temple itself to some degree so applying to Temple was just a natural decision for me. I took a course in Physical Hydrology during the fall of my junior year with Dr. Sujith Ravi (Associate Professor and Director of the Environmental Science Program in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science) and enjoyed it a lot more than I ever thought I would, which gave me a better idea of the direction I wanted to follow.”
Finnegan inquired about the possibility of getting some hands-on research experience and “was given the opportunity to be a part of ongoing research in Dr. Ravi’s lab in the spring of my junior year.”
“I wasn’t going to miss that chance. I realized was more interested in the soil and water aspects of environmental science rather than climate, atmosphere or policy,” he said
Assisting PhD students in the lab brought Finnegan to the Temple Ambler Field Station and the Urban Agrivoltaics research taking place at the Ambler Campus.
The ongoing research, directed in part by PhD candidate Caroline Merheb, explores how the implementation of agrivoltaics in vacant urban spaces could provide additional environmental and socioeconomic benefits, including buffering heat stress, extending seasonal range limits of some crops, storm water management and the potential to address food deserts. The sensor network monitors about 50 physical variables at the agrivoltaic test site located at Temple Ambler. Learn more about the research here. A new Science News documentary by Luke Groskin also features the work of the research group.
“I was able to help out with some of the agrivoltaic research that Caroline Merheb has undertaken. I was able to take measurements of the different crop yields and monitor the soil and air conditions around the site,” he said. “Having the Ambler Campus and the Field Station available, I think, is a great benefit for a lot of the ecological research that is taking place. It is a location that has ideal conditions for doing this type of research and giving students the opportunities for hands-on experience.”
During the summer of his junior year, Finnegan successfully applied for a CARAS (Creative Arts, Research And Scholarship ) Grant, offered annually by the Temple University Office of the Provost and the Deans of Temple University’s Schools and Colleges, to help support his own research.
“My research focused on how biochar (black carbon produced from biomass sources) might affect water retention and mitigate the effects of salinity in the soil,” he said. “The idea behind the research is helping to design green stormwater management installations, which is particularly important in Philadelphia with the stormwater issues we have combined with the aging sewer system.”
According to Finnegan, these real-world hands-on research experiences “have been a great benefit just by having the chance to better understand the research process in general.”
“You get direct experience with designing an experiment, actually carrying it out and then synthesizing the results into something that is usable or non-usable if things go in that direction. The CARAS grant is really good experience for students interested in pursuing graduate school — you have an entire project that you’ve carried out on your own,” he said. “Temple has provided me with so many opportunities to gain practical experience and expand my knowledge, but you have to put yourself out there and go looking for them. Starting out, I never would have imagined I would be doing the things I was able to do at Temple — the professors at Temple are very much open and happy to help undergraduates get involved and get ahead.”
At UCLA, Finnegan said, he will be continuing his studies into salinity in soils with UCLA professor Dr. Sanjay Mohanty.
“I’m going to be expanding the research into sorption and desorption and its effects on the transport of PFAS (Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances, a group of man-made chemicals known as forever chemicals because they persist in the environment),” he said. “There hasn’t been a great deal of research in this particular area. I'm going to be studying the effect of salinity on PFAS transport within green stormwater infrastructure.”