“Change is starting now, and that’s so exciting to witness." - Prof. Sophie Comer-Warner
Editor’s note: This is the second story in a series highlighting the partnership between the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the University of Birmingham in Birmingham, England that was formally established in 2014. These stories lead up to the 10-year anniversary celebration that will take place in April 2024 in Birmingham.
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Inspiring doesn’t fully describe Prof. Sophie Comer-Warner.
Motivating? Maybe. A selfless role model? Certainly.
Legendary? Now we’re getting somewhere.
Of course, in true Sophie fashion, they would just say that they’re a parent, a partner, a friend, a biogeochemist.
The thing is, Prof. Sophie Comer-Warner wouldn’t start a dinner conversation by saying, “I’m saving the world.” They’re far too humble for that.
I, on the other hand, would slam my hands down on the table, stand up and announce to anyone who would listen that Sophie Comer-Warner is one of the countless scientists that is actively trying to make the world a better place for you, for me, for the kids down the street playing with chalk, for the folks sitting in the coffee shop, and everyone in between.
They don’t know them, they don’t owe them anything, yet their work and everything they studied and researched and wrote about and experimented with so they could find a solution isn’t for them, it’s for us.
And that is why Prof. Sophie Comer-Warner is undoubtedly, undeniably, unquestionably legendary.
What is BRIDGE?
Comer-Warner is an assistant professor of Aquatic Biogeochemistry and the current BRIDGE Fellow in Water Sciences from the University of Birmingham (UoB).
BRIDGE (Birmingham-Illinois Partnership for Discovery, Engagement and Education) is the framework for the strategic partnership between the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and UoB.
The acronym—which was creatively teased out of the longer partnership name—originates from some of the earliest collaborations between the two institutions, which centered on research on cultural heritage management associated with the Ironbridge Gorge UNESCO World Heritage Site.
BRIDGE has become one of the most robust strategic alliances between Illinois and an international partner thanks to the consistent investment in ongoing collaboration efforts that have produced an arsenal of outcomes for over a decade.
One of those outcomes is the BRIDGE Fellowship scheme, a five-year program that includes a two-year stint at UIUC.
When the program started in 2016, five fellowships were created based on areas that were identified as a priority. Those areas were education, neuroscience, psychology, maternal health, and cultural heritage.
Then in 2022 a new area or fellowship was added— water sciences.
This new fellowship came out of necessity after both institutions identified the interface between water sciences and emerging pollutants as a new priority area.
The idea was to have the new fellow leverage resources and existing projects from both institutions, to engage and become aware of the joint efforts and stimulate further collaboration across the two institutions and beyond.
In doing so, the Water Sciences Fellow will bridge the gaps between interdisciplinary approaches to a common goal. These potential contributions would not only bring together the research community working in this area across our institutions, but would also yield a well-rounded professional in Water Science.
Comer-Warner is the current water sciences fellow and has been on the UIUC campus since June 2023.
Where did it all start?
Comer-Warner is from Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, England. It’s a city they said I probably never heard of, and they were right.
They graduated from Sheffield University in Sheffield, England, with a degree in Chemistry in 2010, graduated with their master’s from the University of Southampton in 2013, then graduated from the University of Birmingham with their PhD in 2019.
They said they’re proud of where they’re from, they’re proud of their football (soccer) team (Stoke City F.C.), and they’re doing all they can to represent their hometown, such as maintaining their regional accent.
Originally, Comer-Warner said they were going to continue their education in pharmaceutical chemistry. However, that all changed when they studied abroad in Maryland, USA during their undergrad.
Comer-Warner said when they decided to study abroad, their university offered limited options, and the University of Maryland (UMD) was one of them.
They said they ended up in Maryland because they wanted to experience campus life in America, while also experiencing city life in America.
And what better place to experience city life in America than the nation’s capital.
“Washington D.C. was really cool, I went all the time,” Comer-Warner said.
They said their life changed when they went to Maryland because not only did they meet their partner, they also changed their career path.
“I thought my only goal was to make money, and then I took an atmospheric chemistry course at UMD and I was like, ‘Oh wait, this is really cool,’ and that changed my whole career trajectory,” Comer-Warner said. “That’s how I got into environmental chemistry.”
What is environmental chemistry (in a nutshell), and what do you do now?
Comer-Warner said environmental chemistry can include any environmental science, but they don’t do biology. They work with water, or more scientifically, they work across aquatic landscapes, “linking a continuum of ecosystems from streams and rivers to coastal wetlands and estuaries,” according to their website.
“All my friends think I’m a marine biologist and I cannot convince them that’s not what I do,” Comer-Warner said, laughing. “I do more of the chemistry side of the environmental system. I’m a biogeochemist so I look at the influence of biology and geology and other factors on the chemical processes.”
Comer-Warner specializes in carbon and nitrogen cycling and micro- and nano- plastic (MnP) pollution. They said they’re interested in the transport, processing, and fate of carbon, nitrogen, and plastic pollution with a particular focus on greenhouse gas dynamics.
In fact, Comer-Warner said most of their work has been on greenhouse gas fluxes and how these might respond to future global change, such as increased nutrient pollution and temperature.
Now, through this fellowship, they’re studying emerging contaminants; specifically, they’re focusing on tire-wear.
“Think of the particles from your tires when they wear down. No one has really thought about what happens to them in the environment until very recently,” they said. “That’s kind of what I do."
One of the reasons why Comer-Warner decided to focus on tire wear during their fellowship is because there hasn’t been much research on the topic, which is partly because the analytical techniques haven’t been well developed yet.
“You can’t analyze tire wear in the same way as other plastics,” Comer-Warner said. “So, studies that have been looking at micro-plastics using other methods have been excluding tire wear.”
But there is hope because scientists are actively working on possible solutions for this obstacle.
For example, Comer-Warner said John Scott, an associate research scientist and senior analytical chemist at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center and one of the individuals Comer-Warner is collaborating with, is using Pyrolysis–gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (Py-GC-MS) to help measure tire wear.
According to the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory website, PY-GC-MS refers to a method of chemical analysis where a sample is introduced to a heated environment with an absence of oxygen, then broken down into smaller stable fragments or components through controlled thermal degradation (pyrolysis).
This is the best technique to use for tire wear, Comer-Warner said.
Overall, Comer-Warner said scientists believe up to 78 percent of microplastics in the ocean are tires, and the amount of tire wear that will be put out into the environment is expected to increase.
For example, electric vehicles that come with heavy batteries put more weight on regular tires, Comer-Warner said. If new tires that are compatible with electric vehicles aren’t made, then the regular tires that are being used will wear out 50 percent faster than with a regular, gas vehicle.
“Although we are identifying tire wear as a big issue, we don’t know anything about its degradation in the environment, what happens to it, its fate, its transport, its processes,” Comer-Warner said. “We also are about to increase the amount we put in the environment.”
That’s why Comer-Warner is researching this now through their fellowship.
What has the fellowship done for you?
The fellowship gave Comer-Warner an assortment of opportunities, and one big thing they said helped was being able to solely focus on their research.
“I don’t have to teach for the first five years of my assistant professorship, so that gives me a lot more time to focus on my research,” Comer-Warner said. “They also wanted the fellowship to work on emerging contaminants. I was kind of interested in plastics before, but I was still doing all carbon and nitrogen, so the fellowship has forced me to transition and bring into my work plastics which has been interesting.”
It's been over six months since Comer-Warner stepped foot on the UIUC campus, and since then they’ve been able to create a stock of tire particles of different sizes that they can then use in experiments in 2024.
Additionally, they’ve connected with the wetlands group at Illinois State Geological Survey to receive archive samples from that organization's Tollway Runoff Monitoring Program. Those samples are from road run-off and debris collected in bioswales.*
“When you get road runoff it can have metals…so (the Illinois State Geological Survey) has all these archive samples. Our idea is that maybe bioswales also trap tire wear,” Comer-Warner said. “They’ve just given me samples from 2011 and 2015 and they just took samples recently and will be giving me that as well.”
Overall, Comer-Warner is making progress. Proposals for future funding are being written, experiments are being organized, connections are being made, and Comer-Warner said they’re excited for the rest of the time they have at UIUC.
They said their time at UIUC has been a great and valuable experience that’s been met with a supportive and amazing team they get to work with.
“I can already see that after six months here the collaborations are strong and positive. (The team is) really fun as well, so I can already see that this isn’t going to be a two-year experience then that’s it, I don’t work with the people (at UIUC) anymore. This is going to be a lifetime,” Comer-Warner said. “It’s amazing, I don’t think a lot of people get this type of experience early as faculty members. Everybody has a vested interest in this work…and everyone wants me to succeed, and everyone has been very supportive.”
A New Hope: Solving Nature’s Problem
On April 1, 2024, a google search for “climate change” yielded expected results— what is climate change; what are causes; how to fix climate change; effects of climate change include hotter temperatures, milder winters, increased droughts, severe storms; so on and so forth.
Search result after search result amplifying the effects of climate change makes me feel like humanity is on a fast track to seeing some hellish, apocalyptic landscape.
Then, I clicked on “News” for climate change, and there was a different vibe.
Headlines insisting positive change is on the horizon, articles about scientists finding ways to combat severe climate change, and industries being held accountable, tell me that there’s hope.
When I interviewed Comer-Warner, I shared my doomsday sentiments with them. They acknowledged my opinions, and made me feel seen and heard, but then they said something that will stick with me for the rest of my life— it’s not too late.
“We let climate activists say it’s too late. Maybe it’s not too late. I do think there’s a lot more hope than the average person is aware of,” Comer-Warner said. “We don’t need to always do something huge. We must be strategic about it and that excites me because we are starting to prioritize restoration. We don’t need an engineered solution. We can solve nature’s problem with nature.”
The research that Comer-Warner is dedicating their life to is based on a nature-first mindset, and instead of creating solutions to replace what was lost, they, like other environmental scientists, are focusing on natural restoration.
For example, Comer-Warner said we need wetlands, and we need to protect them, right? Well, people can’t just create a replacement for wetlands.
“In Baltimore, for example, they’re trying to make the harbor swimmable. That’s the kind of stuff that you would never imagine happening. Like, no one wants to get in the harbor in Baltimore, but we’re really making big steps to making it swimmable,” Comer-Warner said. “The goal is to not make nature serve us, the goal is to have nature and people benefiting each other and growing well and healthy together,” Comer-Warner said.
Comer-Warner said this switch from using and abusing nature to working alongside nature in a more symbiotic way is what encourages positive change, and it’s exactly what we need to have hope for a better future.
“Change is starting now, and that’s so exciting to witness,” Comer-Warner said.
Sophie Comer-Warner lives in the Urbana-Champaign area with their partner Anika, and son Chesapeake. In addition to working alongside colleagues in ISTC, they also work with colleagues in Earth Science and Environmental Change and Civil and Environmental Engineering.
* Bioswales are landscape features that collect polluted stormwater runoff, soak it into the ground, and filter out pollution. Bioswales are similar to rain gardens but are designed to capture much more runoff coming from larger areas of impervious surfaces like streets and parking lots.
Analicia Haynes is the storyteller and social media specialist. She can be reached at ahayn2@illinois.edu.
