Sherri “Sam” Mason

A discussion on freshwater plastic pollution will be held at Jamestown Community College March 21.

The event will feature one of the foremost experts in the field, Dr. Sherri “Sam” Mason. It takes place at 12:30 p.m., Tuesday, March 21 at the Sheldon Center. It’s free and open to the public.

As part of her visit, Mason will share her presentation again at 6:30 p.m. the same day at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Jamestown.

Mason is the director of sustainability at Penn State Behrend in Erie. She completed her doctorate in Chemistry at the University of Montana as a NASA Earth System Science scholar. During her time as a professor at SUNY Fredonia, Mason’s research group was among the first to study the impact of plastic pollution within freshwater ecosystems.

Mason’s work formed the basis for the Microbeads-Free Water Act, which was signed into law in 2015 by former President Barack Obama and laid the groundwork for similar legislation to be passed internationally.

In recent years, Mason has been awarded the EPA Environmental Champion, Excellence in Environmental Research by the Earth Month Network, Heinz Award in Public Policy, and Great Lakes Leadership Award from the Great Lakes Protection Fund. She has been featured in hundreds of articles in publications such as the BBC, The Guardian, New York Times, and National Public Radio’s All Things Considered.

For more information, visit sunyjcc.edu/events.