Support Rose Palmer's Summer Internship

Meet Rose Palmer, she joins the Plastic Ocean Project's research team this summer to expand her knowledge on the properties and degradation of various plastics. She will gain experience with our Atlas Suntest solar simulator instrument and uFTIR microplastic detector, providing marketable experience upon completion. Her internship research project focuses on understanding how sunlight effects plastics. This experience can result in publishing her findings with Peter Gennaro (currently at SGA) and Plastic Ocean Project, Inc.

Rose will also be representing POP working with one of our esteemed collaborators, Ocean Plastic Recovery Project (OPR) in Alaska. There, she will be studying microplastics in one of the most remote places in our country as well as collecting and sorting tons (literally) of plastic debris unfortunately brought to this pristine environment via the ocean. She will be posting pictures and stories to share her experience. Please consider helping POP fund her work. 

We aim to help young scientists find their path and with the current influx of experienced scientists flooding the market due to science and grant cuts, it is very difficult for new graduates to find work in their field. With your support we can help interns, like Rose, gain the experience necessary to land the jobs they trained for at university. Donate here.

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Rose Palmer's background: Rose has experience in testing the proposed methods and exploration of the material produced in a study by Montes et al. (2024), titled “Biodegradable Composite Materials Based on Cassava Starch and Reinforced with Topinambur (Helianthus tuberosus) Aerial Part Fiber”, was done at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY ESF) in part of Dr. Mark Driscoll’s research group. This project was performed under the Student Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) funded by SUNY and for SUNY ESF undergraduate research credits. The material proposed by Montes et al. used cassava starch as the base and reinforced the matrix with ground topinambur fibers, producing a film by extrusion and thermocompression. These materials are not commonly found in North America, so the method by which the films were made was tested using an alternative starch, such as corn, rice, and wheat, and the cornstarch-based material was filled with α-cellulose. The resulting material is a pliable, cloudy, thermoset filament from which films could be produced. The starting materials and filaments were analyzed by FTIR, SEM, and a light microscope.