URIs_MOMENTUM_Research_and_Innovation_Magazine_Spring_2022_M

Ph.D. student Lauren Gaspar

Jaime Ross never expected to study microplastics. But when the opportunity presented itself to investigate the potential impacts of microplastics on the body, she felt like the timing was right to try something new. “Researchers have been looking more at the

impact of microplastics on marine life and oceans but not the impact on human consumption and disease. We are interested in microplastics because it seemed like a black box in discussions about human health,” explains Ross, a University of Rhode Island (URI) assistant professor with joint appointments in the Department of Biomedical and

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