Research Recap for March 5

Western’s faculty and students are engaged in exciting research across a variety of fields. Periodically, Western Today will share short summaries of the latest developments in scholarship and research at the University. Interested in reading in-depth stories about science and research at Western? Go to Gaia, the university's online journal of research, discovery and scholarship, and subscribe (it's free) to that site by clicking the "Follow" button.

Laurie Trautman

Laurie Trautman, director of Western's Border Policy Research Institute, has been awarded a $15,000 grant from Canadian Consulate General in Seattle to continue the BPRI's research into cross-border trade. The grant, titled "Border Barometer: Regional Impacts of COVID-19 Border Measures Along the Canada-U.S. Border," will attempt to assess some of the negative economic impacts of the border closure since the pandemic began.

Myron Shekelle

WWU Anthropology Research Associate Myron Shekelle has been awarded a $15,000 grant from the Margot Marsh Biodiversity Foundation to continue his field research to identify new species of tarsiers, a type of tiny ancient primate found only in jungles on islands in the Philippines and Indonesia. Shekelle's research is limited to the island of Sulawesi in the Sunda Sea.

Angela Strecker

Associate Professor of Environmental Sciences and Director of Western's Institute for Watershed Studies Angela Strecker has been awarded a third and final installment in a three-year, $927,000 grant from the City of Bellingham to continue the Lake Whatcom Monitoring Project. Although the primary objective of the Lake Whatcom Monitoring Project is to provide long-term data for the lake, which is the primary water source for the City of Bellingham, and its tributaries, additional research is conducted annually to evaluate the effectiveness of storm water treatment systems in the lake's watershed, and to model the hydrology of the lake. The monitoring project also serves as a foundation for a wide variety of undergraduate and graduate research projects.