Education

PhD, Colorado School of Mines
MS, Northern Illinois University
BS, University Of Delaware

Research Interests

• The overall geochemistry of the deep sandstone aquifer of the upper Midwest. The last of the Pleistocene ice advances injected a large pulse of fresh water into this aquifer, and through the use of noble gas and stable isotope data, we are unraveling the dynamics of this one-time event.
• The effects on shallow aquifers and including changes in their microbial consortium when treated effluent is used to recharge the aquifer either directly or indirectly by the use of riverbank filtration.
• The development of a suite of in-situ probes for the rapid, screening-level detection of contamination in submerged or subaerial sediments. These probes induce contaminant fluorescence by excitation with either laser or x-ray irradiation. Our probes allow real-time identification of PAH and heavy metal contamination in sediments for a fraction of the effort involved in the typical coring and subsequent lab analysis that is typically used.
• Use of portable energy dispersive x-ray spectrometry to directly detect heavy metals, in particular lead (Pb) in the edible portion of vegetables. This is a much easier and more direct way to determine if vegetables grown in urban settings are safe to eat than estimating Pb uptake solely from soil measurements.

Teaching Areas

Chemical Hydrogeology, Contaminant Transport, Field Methods in Hydrogeology, Environmental Geology

Selected Publications