Archive for February, 2018

Emerging Investigator Series – Raoul-Marie Couture

We are delighted to introduce our latest Environmental Science: Processes and Impacts Emerging Investigator, Raoul-Marie Couture!

Raoul-Marie Couture is an aquatic geochemist studying coupled elementary cycles in lakes, waterlogged soils and freshwater sediment, with a focus on such systems within the boreal zone. He holds a BSc in Chemistry (2004) from Laval University and a PhD in Water Sciences (2010) from the University of Quebec, Canada. After his graduate studies he held a post-doctoral fellowship at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Research Assistant Professor position in the Ecohydrology Group at the University of Waterloo. From 2013 to 2018, he was researcher, then head of the section for Catchment Processes at the Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA) in Oslo, Norway. Form March 1st 2018 onward he is Associate Professor in the Chemistry department at Laval University. His research aims to understand how the biogeochemical cycling of key elements responds to human activities and climatic factors, with the overarching goal of improving water quality. To acheve his research goals, he combines field work, instrumental analysis and process-oriented computer modelling. His publications have touched on the modelling of biogeochemical processes controlling seasonal anoxia and algae blooms in lakes, the speciation and fate of contaminant metals and metalloids, and the modelling of sediment-water interactions during early diagenesis. He lives in Quebec city with his spouse and two daughters.

Read his Emerging Investigators series article: “Geochemistry of trace elements associated with Fe and Mn nodules in the sediment of limed boreal lakes and find out more about him in the interview below:

Your recent Emerging Investigator Series paper focuses on the geochemistry of trace elements in the sediment of limed boreal lakes. How has your research evolved from your first article to this most recent article?

This article reflects my continuous interest in sediment redox processes and in metal and metalloid diagenesis. Since my first article in 2008, my research has evolved to consider multiple lake systems at once, and how they respond to multiple pressures such as atmospheric deposition, long-term changes in land use and climate, and to geoengineering measures.

What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment?

I am just about to start a new position as a professor in the chemistry department at Laval University. I am looking forward to building a research group in aquatic geochemistry to work the impact of current environmental changes on water quality. I am particularly excited about the opportunity to work on a wide range of water quality issues in various settings, from populated agricultural catchments to boreal and arctic landscapes.

In your opinion, what is the biggest environmental impact posed by the release of trace elements into the water column?

The release of trace elements – especially those that are potentially toxic – to the water column can have a significant environmental impact. In the natural environment, it is a threat to aquatic ecosystems, with often severe impact on the food web from phytoplankton to fish. In drinking water reservoirs, it is a direct threat to water quality and to human health.  Understanding on how trace elements can remain sequestered in the sediment contributes to reducing their environmental impacts.

What do you find most challenging about your research?

The most challenging aspect of my research is the combination of field work, laboratory experiments and computer-based modelling. Understanding the coupled cycling of major and trace elements in the aquatic environment requires balancing project resources along these three axes.

In which upcoming conferences or events may our readers meet you?

I can be found at the upcoming workshop on Restoration of Eutrophic Lakes in Lahti, Finland, June 4-5 2018 (https://lahtilakes2018.fi/) and at the upcoming Goldschmidt 2018 conference in Boston, USA, Aug. 17-18, 2018.

How do you spend your spare time?

I enjoy spending time with my spouse and two young daughters. These days I am also learning the ins and outs of improving the old house that we recently bought in Quebec City.

Which profession would you choose if you were not a scientist?

Choosing between art and natural sciences was a difficult decision when the time came to select an undergraduate program – my other choice would have been architecture.

Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists?

I have experienced that the demands on the time of young researchers is hard to balance, especially with the needs of a young family. Learning early to manage our time efficiently strikes me as an important skill.  For instance, knowing in advance the criteria for advancement has helped me to seize the right opportunities.

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The environmental geochemistry and biology of hydraulic fracturing – Themed Issue

Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts (ESPI) seeks your high-impact research for our upcoming Themed Issue on The environmental geochemistry and biology of hydraulic fracturing.

Guest Edited by Rob Jackson (Stanford University), Paula Mouser (University of New Hampshire), Desiree Plata (Yale University) and Avner Vengosh (Duke University), this Themed Issue aims to showcase original research, reviews and perspectives on the topic of environmental processes in hydraulic fracturing.

Horizontal Drilling with Hydraulic Fracturing (HDHF) has enabled rapid increases in oil and gas supplies, with these technologies now being applied for hydrocarbon development in shale basins across the globe. Concerns regarding the environmental impacts of HDHF technologies have spawned new research over the past 10 years.

In this special issue, we seek to report state-of-the-art knowledge across a broad range of chemical classes (e.g., methane, light, and noble gases, hydrophilic and hydrophobic organic compounds, inorganic chemicals, isotope tracers, radioactive elements, and heavy or rare earth metals) and disciplinary perspectives (e.g., environmental microbiology, geochemistry and biogeochemistry, fluid dynamics and hydrology, as well as public health and policy considerations) that integrate new research findings in environmental processes. The overarching goal of the collection will be to highlight the significant advancements made toward understanding the potential environmental impacts and vulnerabilities of HDHF technologies, assemble important novel contributions in the field, and identify current limitations or uncertainties in the research to motivate pointed future study.

The submission window for this Themed Issue closes on 27th July 2018. If you would like to submit to this Themed Issue,  please get in touch with the Editorial Office (espi-rsc@rsc.org) to register your interest.

Guest Editors: (from left to right) Rob Jackson (Stanford University), Paula Mouser (University of New Hampshire), Desiree Plata (Yale University) and Avner Vengosh (Duke University).

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Emerging Investigator Series – Andrew Graham

We are delighted to introduce our latest Environmental Science: Processes and Impacts Emerging Investigator, Andrew Graham! 

Andrew Graham is an environmental geochemist specializing in the fate of trace elements in aquatic environments.  Andrew received his BA in Geology from Earlham College (2003) and a Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering (with Ed Bouwer).  From 2010-2012, Andrew was a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (with Cindy Gilmour), and began his career at Grinnell College (Grinnell, IA) as an assistant professor of chemistry in 2012.  At Grinnell, Andrew teaches courses in earth system science, inorganic and environmental chemistry, geochemistry, and water resources, and maintains an active undergraduate research group.

Read his Emerging Investigators series  article: “Methylmercury speciation and dimethylmercury production in sulfidic solutions” and find out more about him in the interview below:

Your recent Emerging Investigator Series paper focuses on methylmercury speciation and dimethylmercury production in sulfidic solutions. How has your research evolved from your first article to this most recent article?

The first publication from my Ph.D. work was on chromium speciation in anoxic sediments, with an emphasis on the role that acid volatile sulfides (composed of aqueous sulfide and mineral phases such as FeS) play in reducing Cr(VI) to Cr(III).  Most of my work now centers on Hg biogeochemistry, but a common thread to my work has been in understanding the intersection of the biogeochemical cycles of sulfur and trace elements.

What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment?

I teach at a small liberal arts college, and my laboratory consists entirely of undergraduate students.  Three undergraduate students (Kanzler, Leverich Trainer, and Yang) were co-authors on the paper published in ESPI.  Getting to share in the process of scientific discovery with my students and mentoring them at this early stage of their scientific careers is the most exciting and rewarding part of my job.   I’ve been pretty much a strict experimentalist throughout my career, and the opportunity to collaborate with computational chemist colleagues at ORNL (Lian and Parks) and PNNL (Govind) on this paper was also really exciting.

In your opinion, what is the biggest environmental concern presented by methylmercury speciation and dimethylmercury production?

Methylmercury is a potent neurotoxin that bioaccumulates and biomagnifies in aquatic foodwebs.  Most of human exposure to mercury comes from eating methylmercury-contaminated fish, especially pelagic fish like tuna.  In the oceans, a significant portion of the organic mercury is dimethylmercury (DMeHg), but we know relatively little about the origin and fate of DMeHg.

What do you find most challenging about your research?

Most of my energy right now is aimed at understanding element cycling in real natural systems.  For example, my group is working on understanding Hg cycling in alluvial groundwaters in the Upper Mississippi River Basin. Scaling findings from controlled laboratory experiments to real systems is a challenging task.

In which upcoming conferences or events may our readers meet you?

I usually attend one or two meetings per year – the American Chemical Society National Meeting and the International Conference on Mercury as a Global Pollutant (which meets every other year).

How do you spend your spare time?

I spend most of my time outside of work with my family.  My wife Lauren and I enjoy helping our twin four-year old sons explore the world.

Which profession would you choose if you were not a scientist?

If I had more discipline and more talent, I’d write literary nonfiction, in the mold of one of my favorite authors, John McPhee.

Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists?

My most significant scientific discoveries have occurred when I’ve asked good questions about “failed” experiments.  These experiences are frustrating at the time, to be sure, but remaining open to what the data are telling you allows you to better define the limits of your knowledge or underlying assumptions.

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New Editorial Board members for Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts

We are delighted to welcome three new members to the Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts Editorial Board.

Delphine Farmer is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Colorado State University. Her work focuses on the development of new analytical techniques to study human influences on atmospheric chemistry and biosphere-atmosphere exchange of reactive trace gases and particles. Delphine received a Hermann Frasch Foundation Award in 2012 and an Arnold and Mabel Beckman Young Investigator Award in 2013
Lenny Winkel is Associate Professor (with tenure-track) of Inorganic Environmental Geochemistry at ETH Zurich and Eawag, the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology. Her current research is aimed at understanding the processes controlling the biogeochemical cycling and environmental distribution of trace elements, and the effects of climate and environmental changes on these processes, through modelling, field and laboratory studies. A further focal point is the development of novel analytical methods to quantitatively and qualitatively analyze trace elements in different environmental matrices.
Dr Guang-Guo Ying is the Director and Distinguished Professor of environmental chemistry and ecotoxicology in the Environmental Research Institute of South China Normal University. His research interests focus on environmental contamination assessment and remediation technology, including the fate and effects of contaminants in the environment. He is currently conducting research in emerging science areas such as antibiotics and AMR, endocrine disrupting chemicals, pharmaceuticals and personal care products in the environment, and environmental issues associated with wastewater and biosolidreuse as well as water quality improvement technology. He is interested in the development of chemical and biological tools for the risk assessment of chemicals in the environment.

Emerging Investigators Series:

In addition to joining the Editorial Board, Delphine, Lenny and Guang-Guo will be Editors for our ongoing Emerging Investigators Series. This Series aims to highlight the best research being conducted by early career scientists in the field of Environmental Chemistry.

Papers included in the Series will be extensively advertised, including a feature interview with the lead author on our blog, a mention in our table of contents alerts and on Twitter. The Series is ongoing, with articles being added to the online collection on publication, meaning there are no submission deadlines.

To be eligible for the Emerging Investigator Series you will need to have completed your PhD (or equivalent degree) within the last 10 years* and have an independent career. If you are interested in contributing to the Series please contact the Editorial Office (espi-rsc@rsc.org) and provide the following information:

  • Your up-to-date CV (no longer than 2 pages), which should include a summary of education and career, a list of relevant publications, any notable awards, honours or professional activities in the field, and a website URL if relevant;
  • A synopsis of the article intended to be submitted to the Series, including a tentative submission date. This can be an original research or review article. Please visit the journal website for more details on article types. Please note that articles submitted to the journal for the Series will undergo the usual peer-review process.

Read the articles included in the Series so far at – rsc.li/espi-emerging

Keep up to date with the latest papers added to this Series on our twitter feed (@EnvSciRSC) with the hashtags #EmergingInvestigators #ESPI

*Appropriate consideration will be given to those who have taken a career break or followed a different study path

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New Advisory Board members for Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts

ESPI is delighted to welcome the following new members to our Advisory Board:

Richard Brown, National Physical Laboratory, UK. Professor Brown’s research focuses on trace chemical analysis to provide traceability for, and improve the accuracy of, measurements of pollutants in ambient air and other environmental matrices. He is also involved in research into complex data analysis and calibration techniques.
Tamara Galloway, University of Exeter, UK. Professor Galloway’s research focuses on marine pollution, the human health effects of pollutants and the sustainable development of novel materials and substances.
Colleen Hansel, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, USA. Professor Hansel’s research sits at the intersection of mineralogy, geochemistry, and microbiology with the goal of disentangling the reaction networks that mediate metal and mineral dynamics in natural systems. She is broadly interested in how Earth’s changing climate impacts key mineralization reactions essential for organismal health and functioning, including coral calcification, diatom silicification, and mineral-based metabolisms is researching the biotic and abiotic reaction networks that are involved in biogeochemical cycles and mineralization.
Hans Christian Bruun Hansen, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Professor Hansen’s main research interest in solid-solution processes in soils and sediments governing pollutant fate and with applications in soil and water cleaning.
Kara Nelson, University of California, Berkeley, USA. Professor Nelson’s research focuses on the detection, removal, and inactivation of pathogens in water and sludge; water reuse; nutrient recovery; Drinking water and sanitation in developing countries.
Weihua Song, Fudan University, China. The goal of Professor Song’s research is to understand key chemical processes of current environmental problems. Specifically, the reactivity, transformation and fate of emerging contaminants in natural and engineered environments.
Elsie Sunderland, Harvard University, USA. Research in Professor Sutherland’s lab  focuses on how biogeochemical processes affect the fate, transport and food web bioaccumulation of trace metals and organic chemicals. Her group develops and applies models at a variety of scales ranging from ecosystems and ocean basins (e.g., the Gulf of Maine, the North Pacific and Arctic Oceans) to global applications to characterize how changes in climate and emissions affect human and ecological health.

Read some of the high-impact research published in ESPI by our new Advisory Board members below:

Predicting the frequency of extreme air quality events
Richard J. C. Brown and Peter M. Harris

Biological versus mineralogical chromium reduction: potential for reoxidation by manganese oxide
Elizabeth C. Butler, Lixia Chen, Colleen M. Hansel, Lee R. Krumholz, Andrew S. Elwood Madden and Ying Lan

Photo-transformation of pharmaceutically active compounds in the aqueous environment: a review
Shuwen Yan and Weihua Song

 

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Kris McNeill’s Editors Choice – Aquatic Photochemistry

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