Amanda Schulz, EMPOWER trainee and Earth Sciences Ph.D. student, has recently been selected as a grant recipient for the 2017 American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) Foundation Grants-in-Aid Program.

The award, from the Pittsburgh Association of Petroleum Geologists Named Grant scholarship fund, is designed to support a graduate student attending a university in the Appalachian Basin Area who is studying Appalachian basin geology. Schulz’s research is focused on characterizing temporal changes in naturally-occurring methane in shallow groundwater in the Marcellus Shale region of New York and understanding how these changes relate to variability in climate and water use. Proceeds from the $2750 award will be used to add two more domestic wells to Schulz’s sample that will fill a critical spatial gap in coverage of her study area. According to Schulz, “the data will provide information on temporal variability of methane, as well as spatial variability between wells, which will fill a data gap and can be used to inform policy regulations.”

Schulz’s project is an outgrowth of ongoing research through Project SWIFT at Syracuse University. Professors Laura Lautz, Greg Hoke, Zunli Lu, and Don Siegel (all from Earth Sciences) are involved in Project SWIFT.

For more information about Project SWIFT, please visit the Project SWIFT webpage.

For more information about the AAPG awards, please visit the AAPG Grants-in-Aid webpage.