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25th Annual Environmental Chemistry and Microbiology Student Symposium
April 14, 2023 – April 15, 2023
Location:
Forest Resources Building
Penn State University
University Park, PA 16802
2023 ECMSS Speakers
— April 14, 2023 —
2023 Kappe Lecture
Topic: Aerosols as Catalytic Microreactors: From Making Air Pollution and Clouds Rain, to a Sustainable Solution for Micropollutant Remediation
Presented by:
Dr. Ryan C. Su
llivan
Professor, Chemistry
Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Associate Director, Institute for Green Science
Carnegie Mellon University
Ryan Sullivan is a Professor at Carnegie Mellon University with a joint appointment in the Departments of Chemistry, and Mechanical Engineering, and a courtesy appointment in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in environmental chemistry from the University of Toronto, and his doctorate in chemistry from the University of California, San Diego. He then completed postdoctoral research in atmospheric chemistry at Colorado State University. In the Center for Atmospheric Particle Studies his research explores the chemical transformations of environmental pollutants and their resultant effects on environmental systems, with a focus on the role aerosol particles play in catalyzing key processes that alter the atmosphere, clouds, and climate. The emission of chemical toxic contaminants from combustion and wildfires, the multi-phase chemical evolution of these complex emissions, and their impacts on cloud microphysics is a major current focus. As the Associate Director of the Institute for Green Science he is developing advanced water purification technologies for toxic persistent micropollutant destruction, such as using the TAML catalytic activators of hydrogen peroxide. In 2020 he co-founded a company, Sudoc LCC (www.sudoc.com), to make these catalytic solutions to disinfection and sanitation widely available. Ryan is the recipient of a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation, and the Environmental Award from the Carnegie Science Center.
The Kappe Lecture is an endowed Seminar Series hosted annually by the environmental engineering and chemistry departments. This year the lecture is taking place during the Environmental Chemistry and Microbiology Student Symposium (ECMSS).
— April 15, 2023 —
Keynote speaker (Morning)
Topic: Emerging Contaminants as Agents of Global Change
Presented by:
Dr. Austin Gray
Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences
Virginia Tech
Dr. Austin Gray is an Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences at Virginia Tech. Dr. Gray obtained B.S. in Health, Exercise, and Sports Science from The Citadel, Military College of South Carolina, Charleston, SC, M.A. in Biology from The Citadel Graduate College, and Ph.D. in Environmental Health Sciences from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Dr. Gray’s research priorities are focused on addressing questions related to environmental toxicology, primarily using physiological and ecological approaches to examine the impacts of legacy and emerging contaminants (PAHs, POPs, microplastics, nanoplastics, and pharmaceuticals) from anthropogenic influence and assessing their risk to a variety of freshwater and marine organisms.
— April 15, 2023 —
Keynote speaker (Afternoon)
Topic: Engineering Environmental Justice
Presented by:
Dr. Kimberley Thomas
Assistant Professor, Geography and Urban Studies
Temple University
Dr. Kimberley Thomas is an Assistant Professor in the department of Geography and Urban Studies at Temple University, Philadelphia, PA. Dr. Thomas received B.Sc. in Biology and Environmental Studies (with Distinction) from University of Victoria, MSc in Biological Oceanography from University of Hawaii, and PhD in Geography from Rutgers University.
As a broadly-trained human-environment geographer, Dr. Thomas’s research fundamentally focuses on flows—be they of water as it crosses international borders, people who migrate in response to environmental hazards, or capital as it leaches out of some parts of the world and pools in others. Such flows vary spatially and temporally and have vitally important consequences for human and environmental well-being. Dr. Thomas employs qualitative and quantitative methods to interrogate what processes produce and sustain flows, as well as their differential impacts on people and places. Dr. Thomas draws on her diverse background in the social and natural sciences to conduct mixed-methods research that ranges from historical and ethnographic examination of human vulnerability to environmental hazards, to quantitative analysis of water-sharing treaties, to policy-based assessment of climate-compatible development aid. Dr. Thomas’s research advances an approach to understanding environmental crises that pays critical attention to flows of materials, people, opportunities, and hazards. In so doing, it facilitates productive conversations about the ways resources – and the people who use them – are governed. Dr. Thomas’s work on flows can be divided into two major research areas: international water governance and climate change adaptation finance.
— April 15, 2023 —
Keynote speaker (Evening)
Topic: Human Sulfur Manipulation in the 21st Century: Changing Patterns, Processes, and Consequences
Presented by:
Dr. Eve-Lyn Hinckley
Associate Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Fellow, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences
University of Colorado, Boulder
Eve-Lyn Hinckley is an Associate Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Fellow of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her research focuses on studying the elements that underlie all life on Earth, with an emphasis on how they are changed by human activities and how those changes feed back to affect human welfare. Eve earned her Ph.D. in Geological and Environmental Sciences from Stanford University, and B.A. in Environmental Studies from Middlebury College. Her research on modern changes to the global sulfur cycle is supported by multiple funding agencies, including the prestigious CAREER program through The U.S. National Science Foundation and a grant from U.S. Department of Agriculture. Eve has been recognized at the University of Colorado as a Research & Innovation Office Faculty Fellow and Arts & Sciences Support of Education Through Technology Teaching Fellow.
