What difference would your research make for people and/or the environment?

Question: What difference would your research make for people and/or the environment?
- Keywords:
  change,
  difference,
  research
Asked by axes1hear on 26 Apr 2024.
- Martin McCoustra answered on 26 Apr 2024:
  
  You don’t always know if the research you do will have an impact beyond your academic community. It sometime takes a long time for that to happen. For example, magnetic resonance of atoms was understood fundamentally in the 1940s and 50s. It wasn’t until the 1970s and 80s that this understanding was applied in the development of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). So we sometimes have to wait for science to become technology.
- Rebecca von Hellfeld answered on 30 Apr 2024:
  
  I hope that my research changes how we look at the ocean. We are getting better but many still think that we can just use all its resources without worrying about the impacts we might have. So by showing how many chemicals end up in big whales and dolphins, I hope I can show that we need to be better at marine protection. Also, some of those chemicals are also in fish, which means that expecially communities that eat a lot of fish (coastal and/or indigenous communities) are at increased risk for having too much of these contaminants in their bodies. My research also looks at that and what kind of effects that could have on their health. So hopefully in the future my work can help protect communities like these!

Andrew commented on 26 Apr 2024:

I work in quite an applied field so I am working with industry quite a bit to see if they can use relatively well known tech in new ways to benefit their process. Most of my work involves trying to find ways to use spectroscopy to measure something about industrial products or processes. If it can then it offers a way to better control industrial processes which leads to less waste.

Question: What difference would your research make for people and/or the environment?