Abigail Barrows

Abigail P. W. Barrows (born 1984) is an American marine research scientist and advocate based in Maine. Barrows directs microplastics research that is used to inform conservation-focused legislation, and she initiated the first baseline data map of microplastic pollution distribution in the waters off the coast of Maine.

Early life and Education
Barrows grew up in Stonington, Maine, a town on the island of Deer Isle, off the coast of Maine. In 2006, Barrows graduated with a bachelor's degree in zoology with a focus on marine biology from the University of Tasmania, Australia. After returning to Stonington, Maine, Barrows completed her master's degree in microplastics from the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine in 2018.

Career
Barrows studies plastic pollution in global waterways. Barrows' biological studies led her to travel much of the world including Papua New Guinea, the Himalaya, and South and Central America. She later focused her studies on microplastics, having recognized plastic pollution as a global issue. Barrows has leveraged her research to help pass legislation to reduce plastic consumption.

Barrows directed global microplastic pollution research from 2013 to 2017, and consequently published research in collaboration with the Shaw Institute. She has published 12 scientific papers and her work on microplastic prevalence has been cited hundreds of times. Burrows worked with Adventure Scientists, an organization that links researchers with outdoorsmen and women. This collaboration yielded the largest known and most diverse microplastics dataset as of 2019.

Selected Bibliography

 * Grab vs. neuston tow net: a microplastic sampling performance comparison and possible advances in the field. Abigail P. W. Barrows, Courtney A. Neumann, Michelle L. Berger and Susan D. Shaw. Analytical Methods, 2017.
 * Mountains to the sea: River study of plastic and non-plastic microfiber pollution in the northeast USA. Rachael Z. Miller, Andrew J.R. Watts, Brooke O. Winslow, Tamara S. Galloway and Abigail P.W. Barrows. The Marine Pollution Bulletin. 2017.
 * Global patterns for the spatial distribution of floating microfibers: Arctic Ocean as a potential accumulation zone. André R.A. Lima, Guilherme V.B. Ferreira, Abigail P.W. Barrows, Katie S. Christiansen, Gregg Treinish, Michelle C. Toshack. Journal of Hazardous Materials. 2021.
 * A watershed-scale, citizen science approach to quantifying microplastic concentration in a mixed land-use river. Abigail P.W. Barrows, Katie S. Christiansen, Emma T. Bode, Timothy J. Hoellein. Water Research. 2018.