From the Fall 2018 issue of UNCG Research Magazine
Environmental Health Sciences PhD student Austin Gray hails from Charleston, South Carolina, a harbor city nestled among three rivers. Considering his hometown’s relationship with water, it’s no coincidence it became his academic focus.
Gray started as pre-med at The Citadel, but when a work-study position put him in an aquatic toxicology lab, he was hooked.
“I saw that environmental health and human health are intertwined,” he says. “The importance of water quality amazed me.”
In Charleston, where seafood is central to the culture and floods are often possible, it was easy for him see the health consequences of contaminated water or a compromised aquatic environment.
While a master’s student at The Citadel, Gray researched aquatic estuarine areas, green products, and microplastics — tiny plastic pieces that can threaten aquatic life. His lab’s research, shared through town meetings, even led to the banning of plastic bags by several South Carolina towns and beaches.
Gray came to UNCG to work with Morton Distinguished Professor Anne Hershey, whose scholarship on urban streams caught his interest. He wanted to design a project that examined stream ecology and pharmaceuticals.
“It was aquatic research, but with a completely different focus. I knew working with her would add to my skill set and allow me to become a better scientist.”
During his first year as a doctoral student, Gray received a UNCG O’Brien Award for Ecological Field Research to investigate antibiotics in urban streams of Greensboro. With a biology department grant, he also initiated work in North Buffalo Creek, near campus.
Subsequently, through Hershey’s lab and a fellowship from NC Sea Grant and the Water Resources Research Institute of the UNC System, Gray has conducted research investigating antibiotic pollution in North Carolina rural streams and drinking wells in three counties.
