Latest Postings

All Dressed Up ( Andrea Nicholson )
Mini Coon ( Andrea Nicholson )
Vero Beach Boat Show Nov. 21st & 22nd ( Vero Marine Center )
Spooky Breakfast at Windmill Point I ( Tom Filipkowski )
Local Art at Vera's Framing & Art Gallery ( Iva Campbell )

share a story | more postings »

YourHub.com \\ Port St Lucie \\ Stories \\ Milestones \\ Graduations

PSL Resident Master's in Environmental Sciences

On 12/12/2007

e-mail to a friend | print this | link to this

NEXT › ‹ PREVIOUS

Contributed by: Robin Koestoyo on 4/10/2008

Port St. Lucie resident Catherine Riiska sees the same thing in a glass of orange juice as she does in a body of water, her son, or when she looks at water in an experiment flask-she sees life. A mid-career microbiologist, Riiska returned to the classroom at the University of Florida/IFAS Indian River Research and Education Center just west of Fort Pierce after many years of work in clinical medical and food production facilities. This month she will graduate UF with a Master of Science degree in Environmental Sciences.

"The life sciences are all interrelated with the environment. Studying biochemistry is like looking at God," said Riiska. " It's the most amazing thing how it all works together, it is so interconnected. The smaller you see a living organism in the microscope, the more you understand the big picture-how everything living is interdependent."

She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology with a major in microbiology from Florida Atlantic University and started a professional career working in clinical medical labs, GlaxoSmithKline and Quest Diagnostics Inc. Then her career segued to pharmaceutical manufacturing and then to food safety microbiology as it relates to quality control. She evaluated and monitored the quality of fresh, non-pastuerized orange juice.

"I really enjoyed working with fresh juice because it's alive," she said. " It's a living community like so many things you eat, yogurt and fresh vegetables, even cooked foods are still alive."

Medical and food microbiology involve smaller living communities. But as Riiska pursued her career, her professional goals developed and grew into the interest of a much larger living community-the environment.

"I want to mitigate some of the harm we are doing to the environment so my son will have a beautiful natural world to enjoy. I'm afraid he may experience water wars because we are not conserving. I want to protect life and water is the central solvent of life. You can't have life at any level without safe, non-toxic water," said Riiska.

She knew she wanted to develop her career into one related to the environment and eventually found the Master of Science degree program in Environmental Sciences at the UF Indian River Research and Education Center.

Her graduate research work, carried out under the direction of UF Environmental Toxicologist Dr. Chris Wilson, focused on determining how much of applied pesticides land on non-target ground surfaces and how much is available to run off of the land into surface water-bodies. Dr. Wilson said her projects helped a great deal to characterize pesticide losses from nurseries. She also held a position as a laboratory technician for which she collected water samples, extracted pesticides from the samples, and analyzed them using a gas chromatograph.

"Catherine was deeply devoted to the work she conducted in our laboratory, both as an employee and as a graduate student," said Dr. Wilson. "Her work here was highly reliable as she helped with our studies to assist growers in their work to protect the environment. She will make valuable contributions to the field wherever she works."

As an employee, Riiska enjoyed collecting water samples from the spillway at Ten Mile Creek, an area where much of St. Lucie County's runoff water flows towards the Indian River Lagoon. There, the South Florida Water Management District manages the spillway, which looks like a manmade waterfall.

Riiska said she is interested in working with a state or regulatory agency and to work with environmental mediation. Improving, protecting and enforcing environmental protection would provide her with the career challenge and job satisfaction she is seeking. She said science is about data, hard parameters and also about intuition.

"Intuition--I think that's what makes a good scientist a great one," said Riiska. "I think scientists need to look at 'the big picture' in an environment when they undertake experiments and intuition is a very important element in deciding what to look at-to decide what experiments need to take place."

Riiska's 13-year-old son, Blake Rolen, is her inspiration. The two frequently enjoy fishing in a small boat they own. As mother and son fish together they consider what Blake may do with his own future and at this time his interests are in studying to become a physicist. In the intervening time his mother's intuition is focused upon the need to protect Florida's beautiful environment so Blake may enjoy it, and so that his children may also enjoy fishing or swimming in the ocean, or simply breathing fresh air.

"The only way we can sustain the planet is if we maintain the planet. What difference will it make if our food is safe if clean air is not available? In the future, more people will realize their environment must be healthy so that they may be healthy," said Riiska.

Catherine said she would like to thank those who served on her graduate committee for her success. They are: Committee Chair Dr. P. Chris Wilson, and members Dr. Andrew Ogram and Dr. Max Teplitski, with the University of Florida, and Dr. Joseph Albano, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

In addition, "I would like to especially thank my husband, John M. Riiska, and son Blake Rolen, with their understanding and full support I was able to accomplish graduate school."

[Report this as objectionable content.]

SUBMIT COMMENT

Rate the above story