Dr. Xiaying Xin: Cleaner Water — Victoria Martinez

I’m a prairie kid who loves research. I just completed a Master’s in economics with a focus on public programs, labour and education. Long before that, I did my undergrad in physics & English with a math minor.

Besides my resume, you’ll find this page full of sewing projects, the odd published poem, and stories about Canadian science.

A note about the blog title: in math and physics, the prefix eigen means one's own. It comes from the german, but mostly I always liked thinking about a particle's eigenvalues, and thought I might apply the same thought to my excursions.

Dec 15

Dec 15 Dr. Xiaying Xin: Cleaner Water

Victoria Martinez

Canadian Light Source, Science

University of Regina scientist Dr. Xiaying Xin studies how to make water cleaner. Toothpaste, soaps, and cosmetics all have a chemical called triclosan, which is toxic to algae and can affect the whole food chain - from algae, to fish, to us.

She's using the VESPERS beamline at the CLS to study how titanium, used for water treatment, affects triclosan's toxicity on algae (in this case, Eremosphaera viridis).

I got to meet her and take her photos the other day, so here are a couple of shots of her at work.