OR&R Participates in MICRO 2024

OCT. 7, 2024 — During the week of September 21, the NOAA Marine Debris Program (MDP)’s Chief Scientist, Amy V. Uhrin and Research Coordinator, Carlie Herring, attended and presented at the international conference MICRO 2024. Held biennially in Lanzarote, Canary Islands, Spain, MICRO aims to celebrate the growing community of researchers and policy-makers concerned about the challenge of plastic pollution from macro- to nanoplastics, with a core focus on microplastics.

Two individuals take a selfie in front of a presentation screen.
NOAA Marine Debris Program’s Chief Scientist, Amy V. Uhrin and Research Coordinator, Carlie Herring, attending MICRO 2024. Image credit: NOAA.

Uhrin was invited to give a plenary talk in which she highlighted the need to consider the design of long-term debris monitoring programs in the context of basic principles of question-driven field experimental design. She also described the journey of MDP implementing the Marine Debris Monitoring and Assessment Project at a nationwide scale while addressing said principles.

Additionally, Uhrin gave a platform presentation on the results of MDP’s collaboration with NOAA’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, Oregon State University, and ORBTL AI in which the utility of using polarimetric imagery to enhance the identification and classification of stranded macrodebris was evaluated.

Herring presented a poster highlighting the Congressionally-mandated (Save Our Seas 2.0 Act) Report on Microfiber Pollution. The report provides Congress an overview of the microfiber pollution issue and outlines a plan for federal agencies, in partnership with other stakeholders, to address this problem. MDP and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Trash Free Waters Program co-led development of this report on behalf of the Interagency Marine Debris Coordinating Committee, with support from the consulting firm Materevolve.

Last updated Tuesday, October 15, 2024 6:43am PDT