April 2025

Maya Weiss defended her distinguished majors program (DMP) undergraduate thesis at the University of Virginia. Maya’s thesis used hydrological and chemical data to calculate the fluxes of nitrate, ammonium, dissolved organic nitrogen, and particulate organic nitrogen reaching Buzzards Bay in eleven streams and rivers that have been monitored since 2022. She found that dissolved organic nitrogen, and not nitrate, dominated the annual fluxes in the largest rivers, especially rivers with large areas of cranberries in their watersheds. Maya is following up her thesis by working with the COMBB team to produce both a scientific paper and an “atlas” of Buzzards Bay rivers aimed at a general audience that will be published by the Buzzards Bay Coalition.