cm transcription

male voice: and were rolling
female interviewer: first uhm say your name and spell it out for us and tell us what you do here at UW Oshkosh
Colleen McDermott: Colleen McDermott c o l l e e n m c d e r m o t t, I'm on the faculty at UW Oshkosh in the department of Biology and Micro-Biology where I am a Professor.
female interviewer: So tell me about this uhm beach monitoring program that you and Dr. Kleinheinz are, are, overs..I guess you're overseers.
Colleen McDermott: Correct. uhm Dr. Kleinheinz and I are the ah, overseers of the supervisors of a large research program that involves microbial contamination or water quality at beaches around Wisconsin. uhm We have 5 laboratories that we staff with mostly with students. uhm They're located here in Oshkosh, so we do Winnebago County monitoring we also have a lab in Door County uhm and a lab in Manitowoc County at UW Manitowoc our collaborators and a lab at Northland College on Lake Superior and then 1 last lab uhm in Eagle River in Vilas County at the health department so we are using other peoples labs around the state.
female interviewer: uhm what do you do at..ahoh. what do you and your students do at these labs?
Colleen McDermott: erhm The main thing that we do is we monitor beach water for microbial contamination, are there bacteria in the water that could hurt you if you were gonna swim. uhm That is really the very simple process now we have been doing it since 2003 and we work for all of these counties to do this work. However, that's not the interesting research question the interesting research question is where does that contamination come from and what can we do to fix it, how can we remediate. So our students and all of these labs are doing the routine monitoring and then lots of side projects about how does the contamination get to the beach, can it uhm become greater at the beach if we have certain conditions and then what are things that we could do to fix it so that ss.. people who want to use the waters uhm are able to do that at all times.
female interviewer: Tell me as as a as a uhm field bi...ah be a good microbiology or biology teacher? I mean (inaudible)
Colleen McDermott: (interjects) microbiology yep uh hmm
female interviewer: As a microbiology professor I mean what what do y.. what are your goals fo your students who are involved in this... in this project.
Colleen McDermott: We've been really fortunate in that we've gotten a lot of really good students both undergrad and graduate students who work with us on these projects. My goal for them is to have them have a great research experience so that we can develop new scientists you know were growing our own crop of scientists here. so that they get a real research experience. its not play data, its real data thats going to affect citizens around wisconsin. They're gonna be the ones who are saying a beach is open or closed. So they have... Its real life work that has importance and we try to instill in them how important they are to the project, to these communities uhm they do a lot of liaison work with us so that they're talking to the people at the beaches. So they're doing education as well as learning themselves ah it just an all around win-win. we couldn't do the work without them.
female interviewer: Do you often get that that  moment where you know you're seeing your students uhm  this that the lightbulb is going on in their h... in their minds and saying that that that they've you know what i'm talking about that sh.. that ...
Colleen McDermott: Yeah abs...
female interviewer: ..lightbulb moment
Colleen McDermott: ...aboslutely the students all you know usually start very green and they are a bit ler...little nervous about what they're doing but as they progress through a summer or through a semester whenever they're working with us there's some point where they s... they get it and they can then anticipate what's the next question and when I see them saying wouldn't it be good if we could try this then I know that they have it that they're really involved and that they're doing that critical thinking that you hope they would learn in a class but here they're actually applying it.
male voice: were done were good uhm yeah yeah and and if you could look right at Grace.
Colleen McDermott: ok
male voice: and and I just have a couple of questions i mean ah just on a personal or an or an emotional level i mean how do you feel about th...w... you know the rivers and lakes that ah we have here in Wisconsin.
Colleen McDermott: oh I think its one of our greatest assests and I think we have to do everything to protect the waterways which is why were a part of this research uhm were all of us are concerned about beach health and water health and so I kinda take it personally when people talk poorly about our waters that in fact wisconsin has really great water quality when you compare it to you know uh other parts of the country and certainly other parts of the world then were absolutely fortunate that we dont have huge contamination issues like were seeing in the gulf and other places uhm cause cause I do speak(inaudible) they're my beaches. I can I can help it.
male interviewer: So tell me what does it like when you walk the beaches or when you walk the river trail and you what maybe putting the scientists aside a little bit it and just as you know...
Colleen McDermott: Im not sure we can ever put the scientist aside with all this just i've been doing this too long but I certainly when Im o...at the beach Im looking at just this sort of this broadness this vast expanse 'cause usually I'm on lake Michigan so I'm... I'm looking at hundreds and hundreds of miles of water in front of me that is just... its breathtaking uhm  we...were so fortunate to have that but i'm still also thinking about I wonder which way the current's going and what does you know this algae on the beach have to do with water quality today so (sigh) I can't I love the aesthetics but I have the scientist thats going on in the back of my head at the same time.
male voice: uh thats great i love it
female interviewer: great
Colleen McDermott: good
female interviewer: thank you