Hannah Neuberger, a senior majoring in biology, is researching the level of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB’s) in the Spokane River in her HN 400 class. 

Participating in Honors gives students an opportunity to fully and deeply explore different projects and ideas. This is illustrated by HN 400, a one credit class where Honors seniors complete an individual project with faculty support and guidance. 

Hannah’s ultimate goal is to “find out if the measures put in place by the City of Spokane to combat PCBs in the river are having any effect.” 

To accomplish this, Hannah is compiling and comparing historical levels of PCBs to current levels of PCBs, focusing on fish tissue samples. She will then determine a trend in the concentrations that exist over time. 

She first got excited about this project when she began looking into the data that exists regarding PCB’s, and realized how disorganized the data is. While it’s common knowledge that people shouldn’t eat fish from the Spokane River due to PCB levels and the City of Spokane has been working to reduce those levels, Hannah said that “trend data is virtually nonexistent.” 

“I was very excited to learn more about the environmental health of my community and get a sense of where PCBs in the Spokane River are headed,” she said. 

This project has given Hannah the ability to learn more about data management and gain new skills in finding and assessing primarily literature. She’s excited with how these skills will transfer over into her future in biological research.

“This project has also taught me that sometimes your research plan takes unexpected turns, and that’s ok,” she said. 

After graduation, Hannah plans to go to graduate school and work in biomedical or environmental research. In the far future, she might get a Ph.D. as well.