Bison Trailblazers | Howard Students Leave Their Mark at Mt. Chacaltaya

by Anna De Cheke Qualls

Howard has a footprint even on top of the Bolivia's 17785-foot Mount Chacaltaya. It is home to the world’s highest Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) station, where HU senior research scientist Dr. David Whiteman took a group of Howard undergrads recently.  

After an accomplished research career in the use of LIDAR for remote sensing of the atmosphere, Whiteman retired from NASA to Howard’s Beltsville campus. There, he maintains a laboratory that supports student research. Since joining the University, Whiteman has focused on mentoring students from Howard, Greenbelt’s Eleanor Roosevelt High School, and the Universidad Mayor de San Andres (UMSA/La Paz, Bolivia). 

In 2023, Whiteman was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to support extended research visits to Bolivia. But one thing was missing – student involvement. He received funding from the U.S. State Department to involve four U.S. students in the planning, execution and analysis of data from a field campaign for the purposes of cultural and scientific exchange. 

Having had an on-going relationship with UMSA’s Laboratory for Atmospheric Physics (LFA) since 2005, Whiteman was quickly able to develop a 10-day program and field campaign for both the American and Bolivian students. UMSA’s LFA and Chacaltaya GAW Station Director, Dr. Marcos F. Andrade was the program’s local counterpart. In total, the three Howard students, Ayanna Mann, Theodore Daniels, Ramiya Shelton, the University of Maryland's Audrey Rappaport and eight Bolivian students participated. Before departure, everyone was required to participate in a 2-month virtual scientific and cultural training. 

Much of LFA’s research takes place at the Mt. Chacaltaya Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) established in 2011. Among other things, the measurements from the Mt. Chacaltaya site have shown that city-generated pollutants arrive regularly at the GAW station, and can accelerate the melting of snowpack and glaciers.  

Water availability is of critical importance to the residents of El Alto and La Paz. One of the major sources of water in the area is melt-water from glaciers. Recent research has indicated that the transport of pollutants from the cities of El Alto and La Paz can accelerate the melting of glaciers in the high Andes, and thus potentially affect the availability of water for locals. Mt. Chacaltaya was formerly the site of the world’s highest elevation ski area. By 2009, its glacier had fully melted resulting in the end of regular skiing operations. This rapid melting of the glacier was one of the motivations for the establishment of the world’s highest elevation GAW station at Mt. Chacaltaya. 

Whiteman’s original Fulbright proposal included student-led field measurement campaigns that would attempt to quantify the flow of pollutants from La Paz toward the GAW station. The influence of this pollution flow has been suspected for several years but never directly measured. It was always to plan to partner with Bolivian students who would be involved in the planning, execution and analysis of data from the field campaign. It was in this aspect of the Fulbright project that Howard students plugged into thanks to the State Department.

For HU Physics student Ayanna Mann, the trip was an opportunity to do interdisciplinary research and to travel. 

“I was excited about the opportunity to both travel to a new country and research a different topic. My specialty is astrophysics but when I was applying to college atmospheric science was something that I was also very passionate about,” says Mann. “Interdisciplinary work is critical to my research interests. This past summer, I also did computational astrophysics - exploring some atmospheric systems on super massive stars to better understand the foundation of the physical proponents of different atmospheres.” 

While in Bolivia, Howard students learned about the impact of pollutants on water availability in the Andes.  They participated in the planning and execution of an atmospheric field measurement campaign at the Mt. Chacaltaya GAW and five field locations. They learned to use various instrumentation including tethered balloons with sensors attached, standard weather station equipment, a micro aethalometer and PM2.5 sensors. They also analyzed the resulting data and with Whiteman published it in a poster presented at the 2024 Meeting of the American Meteorological Society.  

The trip also included cultural programming - an excursion to Lake Titicaca, an international horse show, a visit to Coroico and the Senda Verde Wildlife Refuge. And of course, lot of networking between the Bolivian and American students and researchers.

"Our students were able to practice speaking English with their international peers in a very friendly environment. It was also helpful that they had to explain and present their research in English. For Bolivian students, this was their first experience in this kind of academic exchange. This was in part due to the wise and gentle guidance of Dr. Whiteman," says Andrade.

“Being able to build strong bonds with the Bolivian students while seeing the beauty of how universal science can be, was one of my best experiences there. Despite my inability to speak Spanish fluently, I was able to connect with the students - they were so open and ready to share their culture and customs. We went everywhere together and I still stay in contact with many of them to this day. The cultural exchange that occurred so naturally was beautiful and definitely my favorite experience from the exchange,” remembers Mann.

The full photo album (courtesy of Dr. David Whiteman) can be found on Flickr. For program participation, each student received a microcredential and electronic badge from Howard University's Graduate School.