With the aid of a special joint fund, GW and Smithsonian researchers will explore shipwrecks from the trans-Atlantic slave trade, dissolved gases in aquatic environments, cell phone usage, primate breast milk and the impact of poultry operations on watersheds.
The five research projects are the first to be supported through the GW-Smithsonian Opportunity Fund, created as part of a memorandum of understanding signed by GW President Steven Knapp and Smithsonian Secretary Wayne Clough in 2010.
The university and the Smithsonian each pledged $100,000 toward the fund, and the research projects selected will receive approximately $40,000 a piece and will be led by a team of investigators from both institutions.
“GW and the Smithsonian Institution have a long history of collaboration,” said Randall Packer, Columbia College of Arts and Sciences associate dean for special projects and professor of biology. “The Opportunity Fund allows us to expand the scope of those collaborations, bringing together researchers who have shared interests but who have not had the opportunity to work together. It is our hope that the collaborations will be productive and long lasting.”
The new projects receiving support through the GW–Smithsonian Opportunity Fund are:
Exploration of Maritime Archaeology of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
Associate Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs Stephen Lubkemann and Paul Gardullo, museum curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, will lead an international research team to locate, document and secure unique—and increasingly threatened—archaeological remains related to the maritime aspects of the slave trade. The primary goal of the collaborative effort is to track and document the history of two late 18th-century shipwrecked vessels that played pivotal roles in the trans-Atlantic slave trade: the Sao Jose, which wrecked near Cape Town, South Africa, while carrying more than 500 slaves from Mozambique to Brazil, and the L’Aurore, which foundered near Mozambique Island with 600 slaves destined for the Americas.
Primate Breast Milk: Effect on Infant Growth, Development and Adult Disease
Assistant Professor of Anthropology Robin Bernstein and Michael Power, animal scientist at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute’s Nutrition Laboratory and Conservation Ecology Center at the National Zoological Park, will partner on a comparative study of regulatory molecules in breast milk of nonhuman primates. The study, which is the only one of its kind, will produce new information about maternal-infant physiology from evolutionary and human disease perspectives.
Analysis of Political and Cultural Ecologies of Cell Phones
Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs Joel Kuipers and Joshua Bell, curator in anthropology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, are collaborating to create a new exhibit on the “Political Ecologies of Cell Phones.” This project will examine the development of new cultural patterns associated with the cell phone, focusing on the phone as a communications instrument and on the ecological networks in which it rose as a commodity. Graduate students will assist in researching the diversity of cell phone cultures in four D.C.-area communities with regard to linguistic, social, graphic and material features.
Impact of Turbulence on Distribution of Dissolved Gases in Aquatic Environments
Assistant Professor of Engineering and Applied Science Philippe Bardet will work with senior scientists Denise Breitburg and Thomas Jordan and postdoctoral fellow Keryn Gedan at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center to investigate factors controlling the concentrations and dispersal of dissolved oxygen in aquatic environments. The study will involve combining data on fluid mechanics and laser diagnostics, knowledge of ecosystem processes in flowing water and expertise on the dynamics and effects of oxygen in habitats along the bottom of a lake or deep river. With this data, the team will develop laboratory and field experiments that will simultaneously measure the water velocity and dissolved oxygen concentrations. The results will be relevant to environmental management and restoration.
Effect of Watershed Discharge of Poultry Feeding Operations
Assistant Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health Jay Graham and the Smithsonian’s Dr. Jordan are combining efforts to investigate the environmental and public health impacts of poultry operations on watershed discharges. Their goal is to develop a new approach for tracking contaminants and their sources. Using the Chesapeake Bay basin as their laboratory, the researchers will compare nutrients and antimicrobial-resistant pathogenic bacteria—known to cause 36,000 human deaths per year—in several streams draining from area watersheds. By contrasting the levels of poultry litter, which contains the bacteria, they will be able to determine which poultry operations negatively impact the streams in the watersheds and thereby the Chesapeake Bay basin.