While other students were attending classes or studying in the library during the 2024-2025 school year, Lauren Johnson and Tamarr Moore were wearing waders and collecting oysters about three hours southeast of campus.
On Sept. 20, their research efforts were recognized by the North Carolina Coastal Federation with the Pelican Award.
Johnson and Moore, who both completed an accelerated bachelor’s-to-master’s degree in earth, environmental and geospatial sciences in May 2025, conducted research on PFAS (sometimes called “forever chemicals”) and heavy metals found in oysters in the Pamlico Sound, a 500-acre oyster sanctuary.
“We like to use oysters,” said Carresse Gerald, Ph.D., an associate professor and advisor to the research project. “Oysters filter water. They are a bioindicator.”
Johnson and Moore were the first students from North Carolina Central University (NCCU) to take part in this research, which was paid for by a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The two lived in student housing owned by North Carolina State University in Morehead City. Monthly, they checked the NOAA tide and currents webpage, then traveled about ten minutes to arrive at low tide at four marsh sites.
Wearing gloves, they collected six to ten oysters at each site. Along the way, they tested temperature, salinity, conductivity, total dissolved solids (TDS), pH and dissolved oxygen (DO).
Back at the lab, they shucked the oysters and placed the tissue samples in tubes, which were then transported to a laboratory in Raleigh.
When not wading in estuaries, they took part in educational activities led by Rachel Bisesi, environmental educator for the North Carolina Coastal Federation
“We went to a STEAM camp,” Johnson said. “We talked about what it is like being a Black scientist and women in the science fields.”
They also spoke about oysters and coastal restoration during Earth Day and did a presentation to the board of the North Carolina Coastal Federation. Johnson even helped perform a necropsy – similar to an autopsy – on a beached whale.
“It was a pygmy sperm whale,” Johnson said. “The animal had unfortunately beached. It wasn’t that big.”
The research had its challenges. Neither had previously spent any time on the coast. As the first students on this research project, it initially took some time to figure things out.
“This was my first time leading research,” Moore said. “It took me a while to get into that kind of groove.”
Besides learning more about PFAS and heavy metal levels in the environment, the research is important.
“We want to increase the number of students, especially minorities, who are in these spaces,” said Gerald.
Since graduating, Johnson has found employment as an earth science teacher at a high school in Alexandria, Virginia. Moore is back at NCCU where she works as a lab assistant to Gerald and also teaches an undergraduate course in biology.