Senior’s Study of Millrace Water Temperatures Wins the Chancellor’s Undergraduate Research Prize

Delia Marchetti, a senior environmental science major from Cedar Bluff, has won the 2026 Chancellor’s Undergraduate Research Prize for a two-year study of water temperatures in the Millrace, the historic mill channel that runs between campus and downtown Porter Falls. The prize carries a $2,500 award and was announced at the spring undergraduate research poster session, where 146 students presented.

Marchetti installed 14 low-cost temperature loggers along the channel in spring 2024, built from parts that cost about $38 each, and recovered them every six weeks through two summers and one winter. Her data show a 400-yard stretch below the old Porter Woolen Mill site where groundwater seeps keep summer temperatures four to six degrees cooler than the rest of the channel — enough, she argues, to explain why that is the only place native freshwater mussels still turn up in surveys.

“Everyone in town assumed the Millrace was basically a ditch. It turns out a short piece of it is doing something no other part of the river is doing, and it is right behind a parking lot.”

— Delia Marchetti, senior, environmental science

The work was supervised by Dr. Ruth Okonkwo-Barrie, associate professor in the Department of Environmental Science, and builds on the department’s long-running Porter River and Millrace ecology monitoring. The City of Porter Falls has asked for Marchetti’s sensor map as it plans stormwater changes near the channel, and the city’s parks staff have agreed to keep four of her loggers in place after she graduates.

Also recognized

• Runner-up: Tobias Lindgren, junior, mechanical engineering, for a low-cost fatigue test rig for 3D-printed prosthetic sockets
• Runner-up: Amina Yusuf, senior, dietetics, for a study of what Porter Falls food pantry clients actually take home versus what is stocked
• People’s choice: a four-student apparel design team that tested how many wash cycles “compostable” athletic shirts survive (eleven)

Marchetti will present the work this summer and start a graduate program in aquatic ecology in the fall. Students interested in paid research positions can start at the undergraduate research office.

Contact: Office of University Communications, news@uwporterfalls.edu