Research
My research has focused on metals in the environment and my students’ research tends to be an extension of this work. My work is always evolving but tends to focus primarily on fate and effects, and toxicity of contaminants in aquatic systems.
Personal research projects:
-
The Screening and Prioritization of Contaminants of Emerging Concern in the Marine Environment Based on Multiple Measures of Biological Response
This work was a modeling project designed to prioritize contaminants of emerging concern in Puget Sound based on aquatic toxicity and Tox21 data. It was conducted in colaboration with Andy James at the Center for Urban Waters at the University of Washington, Tacoma. Our final report is available here. 2020-2021.
-
Silver nanoparticle (AgNP) fate and toxicity in the presence of humic and fulvic acids.
This work was conducted with PVP, citrate, and carbonate coated AgNP and with AgNO3. Size (using DLS and Nanosight Tracking), dissolved Ag (using ultracentrifugation), ionic Ag (using ion selective electrodes), and toxicity to Chlamydomonas reinhardtii were determined. This work was conducted in collaboration with researchers at The Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag). 2010 – 2011.
-
Plutonium and uranium mobility in subsurface environments in the presence of exopolysaccharides (EPS) isolated from bacteria.
The work used competition experiment with cation exchange resin combined with FITEQL modeling to determine conditional stability constants for the radionuclides binding to citrate and EPS. 2002 – 2003.
-
Genetically based tolerance of Palaemonetes pugio to chromium, fluoranthene, and endosulfan.
The research methods included exposure of the test organism to the toxicants. Throughout the exposure, dead organisms were removed and stored for analysis, which included sex, size, and allozyme phenotype. The work supported a tolerance to chromium was related to the glucose phosphate isomerase (GPI). 1998 – 2002.