{"id":18935,"date":"2022-10-26T18:02:35","date_gmt":"2022-10-26T18:02:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/160-news\/?p=18935"},"modified":"2026-02-27T22:52:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T22:52:14","slug":"mac-students-professor-publish-research-on-redlining-and-air-pollution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/2022\/10\/mac-students-professor-publish-research-on-redlining-and-air-pollution\/","title":{"rendered":"Mac students, professor publish research on redlining and air pollution"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mac students Elizabeth Hrycyna \u201821, Jennings Mergenthal \u201821, and Saiido Noor \u201823, along with Biology Professor Mary Heskel, published the results of their research in an academic journal over the summer. Their <\/span>article<\/span><\/a>, \u201cSatellite observations of NO<\/span>2<\/span> indicate legacy impacts of redlining in U.S. Midwestern<\/span> cities,\u201d appeared in <\/span>Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene.<\/span><\/i> The project is just the latest in a long line of examples of Macalester students and faculty collaborating to produce original research worthy of publication. It\u2019s likely the first time, however, that the participants never met in-person while working together. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis project was undertaken entirely during the pandemic, with nearly all aspects occurring remotely and via Zoom, and the students were very flexible and game for taking on the additional challenges,\u201d said Dr. Heskel.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study originated as Hrycyna\u2019s senior honors thesis for biology with Dr. Heskel, and she collaborated with  the other Mac students to help her examine how the legacy of redlining and other forms of housing discrimination affect modern-day air quality in 11 Midwestern cities.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How they did it<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The project was a true inter-disciplinary collaboration, as the student-researchers employed their skills in biology, history, and data science to complete the project. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By using Home Owners\u2019 Loan Corporation (HOLC) maps that delineate redlined neighborhoods, which were digitized and made publicly available by the University of Richmond\u2019s <\/span>Mapping Inequality<\/span><\/a> project, they quantified nitrogen dioxide (NO<\/span>2<\/span>)<\/span> levels across neighborhoods and cities using satellite data of air quality on Earth, compiled by Google Earth Engine.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the lead author, Hrycyna worked with Dr. Heskel to design the study, and led the efforts of  analyzing and visualizing the data. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere was a lot of learning on the go,\u201d said Hrycyna, who was new to both satellite data and geospatial analysis. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mergenthal, a history and biology double major, focused their work on the front end of operations, focusing on datasets collected in the Twin Cities. \u201cI made a bunch of maps, looked at tree cover and the redlining tracks, contextualizing what redlining is and how it integrates into things that still exist today,\u201d Mergenthal said.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Noor, also a biology major and data science minor, worked on the back end of the project with data to assess urban areas\u2019 proximity to major roads and highways, using statistics \u201cto understand what biological question we\u2019re going after.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What they found<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Redlining refers to the systemic denial of financial services, including mortgages, to individuals living in certain geographic areas based on race and ethnicity \u2013 a discriminatory practice that traces its roots to federal home ownership programs in the early 20th century. The researchers found significantly higher NO<\/span>2 <\/span> levels in many Midwestern cities\u2019 redlined neighborhoods compared to \u201cgreenlined\u201d neighborhoods which were, and are, whiter and wealthier.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Professor Heskel, the main takeaway was that \u201chistoric urban housing policies grounded in racism, and the associated continued government disinvestment, impact the air quality of neighborhoods – and this impact is large enough it can be detected from space.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mergenthal, who now works at the Science Museum of Minnesota, echoed their mentor. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs much as some people would like to say, \u2018Oh, redlining is a thing of the past, it doesn\u2019t have bearing on the present,\u2019 it\u2019s not true,\u201d they said <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Hrycyna, who is now a research technician for a state natural history survey in Illinois, the collaboration and problem-solving prepared her for life after graduation. <\/span>Next summer, she plans to lead a key research project for the survey.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThanks to this experience, I feel prepared for that now,\u201d she said.  <\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Biology Professor Mary Heskel, Elizabeth Hrycyna \u201821, Jennings Mergenthal \u201821, and Saiido Noor \u201823 recently published their original research on redlining and air pollution. <\/p>","protected":false},"author":1077,"featured_media":18939,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4,46,52],"class_list":["post-18935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","tag-biology","tag-history","tag-mathematics-statistics-and-computer-science","mediatype-articles"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"fields":{"article_type":[8],"flickr_photoset_id":"","youtube_id":"","square_thumbnail":false,"press_photos":false,"story_title":"","story_caption":"","rotations":false,"maps":false,"marker_title":"","marker_text":"","geographic_location":false,"feature_embed":"","custom_link_url":"","news_icon_name":"","image_options":false,"main_feature_story":"","custom_image":false,"custom_feature_title":"","custom_feature_caption":"","custom_markup":"","custom_markup_link":"","custom_markup_title":"","custom_markup_caption":"","byline":"","post_thumbnail_style":"default","press_downloads":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1077"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18935"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30879,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18935\/revisions\/30879"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}