Luisa Galgani

I am an early career aquatic scientist fascinated by carbon biogeochemistry in aquatic systems under the effects of climate change, switching between freshwater and saltwater, but loving both. I graduated (MSc) in Environmental Chemistry in Siena, Italy, and did my PhD on marine biogeochemistry in Germany, Kiel (GEOMAR and AWI). I have been moving around a bit, Spain (University of Granada and University of Cadiz), Germany and the USA (Scripps Institution of Oceanography) and now I am back in Italy at the same university where I started my studies, with a European fellowship POSEIDOMM. After running laboratory microcosm experiments over the last 6 months, we are looking to test this hypothesis in "future plastic ocean" conditions, to better understand yet unpredicted and unsuspected effects of the plastic problem. Therefore, this crowd-funding would really help us a lot. Besides this research, I lead a parallel outreach and citizen-science project in cooperation with the FreshWater Watch initiative. In the Arno River Basin (Tuscany, Italy), 38 citizens and students volunteers regularly monitor 18 chosen sites for water conditions (nutrients, turbidity) and most importantly, record and remove plastic litter on the shores prior its arrival to the Mediterranean Sea. This way, we hope to estimate the fluxes and origin of major plastic pollutants and better tackle this global problem at its local sources.

July 2016