Marine science expert monitoring Boston Harbor pollution

Harvard researcher James Shine is currently researching pollutants in the sediment of Boston Harbor and other harbors. He is crafting criteria for the Environmental Protection Agency that would measure pollution by amounts in sediment, not just in the water itself, giving a more accurate picture of the ecosystem. When he was in graduate school, “nobody really knew how Boston Harbor or Massachusetts Bay functioned,” said Shine, now an assistant professor of aquatic chemistry in the Department of Environmental Health at the Harvard School of Public Health “Scientists were needed, and I was interested in learning how science is used to make decisions about the environment.” Today Shine is an expert on the harbor that sparked his academic career, and his knowledge is in demand now more than ever as the Boston Harbor cleanup project enters a new and somewhat controversial stage that could affect the entire Massachusetts Bay.