Intern: Helen Marlucy Hernández Pérez, Environmental Science and Development

Helen did her internship in the Soil Science Department of the Agronomy School at the Federal University of Ceará (UFC), located in Brazil. The department is in charge of the following courses: agricultural physics, general and inorganic chemistry, agricultural mineralogy and geology of the Agricultural Engineering and Edaphology (soil science) Departments. UFC has a Masters and Ph.D program mainly in the areas of chemistry, physics and soil microbiology.

As part of her work, Helen supported Master and Ph.D students. Alongside one of the Master students, she researched the effect of sorghum growth and microbial biomass with the addition of organic matter and clay in sandy soils.  The goal was to evaluate the agricultural practices being done in semi arid Brazil. Another project in which she was involved was with a Ph.D student testing the physical chemical fractioning of organic matter and heavy metals. She also helped in the soil management and environmental chemistry areas performing field sample collection for laboratory analysis.