Achievement

The capstone project conducted by the first cohort of LEAP students, Kelly Granberg, Paul Gulezian and Jennifer Ison, involved the study of the recent invasion of Conium maculatum (Poison Hemlock) in Cook County, IL. Field monitoring indicated that the invasive was confined to contaminated soils along major freeways or on land owned by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District. The project, funded by Chicago Wilderness, used research methods from environmental engineering, molecular biology, and landscape ecology to discover whether the invasive is adapted to particular soil contaminants. Two UIC undergraduates also participated in the study. Cohort I has submitted a final report to Chicago Wilderness, has presented their results at several conferences, and has submitted a manuscript to the journal 'Science of the Total Environment.'