Student Receives Civic Research Innovation Prize from MetroLab Network.
Student Receives Civic Research Innovation Prize from MetroLab Network
Beth Haley, a doctoral student in the Department of Environmental Health, will use the award to support her work to improve the water quality of the Merrimack River.

Beth Haley, a doctoral student in the Department of Environmental Health at the School of Public Health, was recently named one of three winners of MetroLab Network’s Civic Research Innovation Prize.
The prize provides an opportunity for students from across MetroLab Network’s member colleges and universities to pitch innovative ideas for civic research projects that they will carry out in partnership with a local government agency or community partner. Each winner received a $5,000 grant to advance their ideas and bring their projects to life.
“I am deeply committed to conducting research that is relevant to communities and decision-makers, especially given the ongoing climate change crisis,” says Haley, who is also a member of the BU Graduate Program in Urban Biogeoscience and Environmental Health. “Receiving this prize from the MetroLab Network is validation of our ongoing efforts to bring this mindset into all aspects of our work, and is recognition that the work we are doing is seen as meaningful for communities.”
For Haley’s pitch, she proposed a collaborative project with the Merrimack River Watershed Council, a nonprofit watershed association working to improve the Merrimack River, which runs through New Hampshire and northern Massachusetts. The Merrimack River is a recreational destination for millions of people across the region as well as a drinking water source for over half a million people; however, the river is also polluted by multiple sources, including combined sewer systems.
Communities surrounding the Merrimack River frequently express concern about the river’s water quality, so Haley’s project aims to develop a model to estimate bacteria concentrations in the water. The model will then be used as the scientific basis for a notification system to alert community members of water quality conditions in real time.
This is part of an ongoing set of projects that Haley and Wendy Heiger-Bernays, clinical professor of environmental health, have started in the Merrimack River region related to water quality. Haley says she is grateful that the prize will help to move this new project forward by supporting her time while also ensuring that she can continue to work on other projects relevant to the communities of the Merrimack Valley.
“Funding sources like the Civic Research Innovation Prize are critical in getting new projects off the ground, especially projects like this one that directly address a community need,” says Haley.
MetroLab Network is an international collaborative of 28 cities, 6 counties, and 36 universities focused on civic research and innovation. Their work is centered around three pillars: cultivating partnerships between universities and local governments, fostering a peer network of stakeholders across various fields and practices, and creating an ecosystem of partners with a shared interest in civic research and innovation. MetroLab was launched jointly by 40 mayors and university leaders as part of the White House Smart Cities Initiative in 2015.
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