When Audrey Sawyer, assistant professor, Earth sciences, is presented with her field’s top award in late September, it won’t be the first — or last — time her contributions to her field are recognized.

While the Kohout Early Career Award, introduced in 2012, is young like Sawyer, it, like Sawyer, has already made a name for itself. The award, presented by the Hydrogeology Division of the Geological Society of America, recognizes the exceptional research, service and clear potential of young scientists. Named for Francis Kohout, an early pioneer in studying geothermal salt water convection in carbonate platforms, it is endowed by his estate, carries a $1,000 honorarium plus travel costs and is presented annually to a distinguished early career scientist.

Read more about Sawyer's new research on the vulnerability of the U.S. coastline to hidden contamination in Science, USA Today and Gizmodo.

“It is always wonderful to receive an award from your peers,” Sawyer says. “As a hydrogeologist who focuses in particular on coastal problems, I feel exceptionally honored to be the 2016 recipient of the Kohout Early Career Award, created to honor a scientist who made pioneering discoveries in coastal hydrogeology. Every recipient is indebted to Francis Kohout and his impact on our field and grateful to his estate for endowing the award.  

“To be selected for this particular award was overwhelming. To learn that my nomination process was led by my former PhD advisor — who himself was the award’s first recipient — was truly icing on the cake!”  

Sawyer joined the School of Earth Sciences in August 2014 and has been making her own impact ever since. The assistant professor describes her research as, “dedicated to understanding how the flow of water mediates geologic and ecologic processes near the earth’s surface, focusing on the exchange of surface water and groundwater, such as fluid flow between rivers or bays and aquifers. This surface water-groundwater exchange impacts ecosystem health by influencing how nutrients, contaminants and heat move in watersheds.”

In June 2015, NSF funded a three-year collaboration between Sawyer and Rebecca Barnes, an assistant professor of environmental science at Colorado College.

Their research on “Dueling hot spots in the tidal freshwater zone — Surface water-groundwater connectivity and the fate of nitrogen in tidal rivers” is well-underway; their team is busily measuring nitrate concentrations along tidal freshwater zones.

“We are ‘teasing out’ how nitrate flows towards the coast under highly dynamic tidal conditions and running numerical models to expand our observations to other coastal settings,” Sawyer says.

Sawyer’s $256,672 portion of the grant supports PhD student, Corey Wallace, and two undergraduate researchers.

Wallace researches surface water-groundwater interaction within tidal freshwater zones, looking at how bank storage and water-table fluctuations influence nitrate production and removal. His knowledge of water resources engineering comes in handy in studying these interactions.  

Mitch Bayer, who will be a third-year student this autumn, has a paid internship this summer to do field work in Delaware. He will present his student thesis work at the regional divisional meeting in Pennsylvania in March.

Thomas Schmitz, a recent graduate, conducted his senior thesis research on national-scale monitoring efforts and data gaps in tidally influenced rivers. (The School of Earth Sciences requires all undergraduate majors to complete a research thesis.)

Sawyer, who had been on the tenure-track at the University of Kentucky, was lured to Ohio State, she says, “by an abundance of researchers focused on water, both here within the School of Earth Sciences and across other departments and colleges. It's an exciting place to be for a hydrogeologist.”

Everyone would agree that this move has been a win-win, not only for Sawyer, but for Ohio State and the School of Earth Sciences, now home to a young researcher creating an impressive track record. Stay tuned for word of her forthcoming paper in Science.