Meet the Environmental Science: Nano Editorial Board Members

Chair: Vicki H. Grassian

Vicki H. Grassian is currently the F. Wendell Miller Professor of Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Iowa and holds appointments in the Departments of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering and Occupational and Environmental Health. In 2006, she was appointed Founding Director of the Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Institute at the University of Iowa by the Vice President for Research. She currently directs the Nanotoxicology Core within the Environmental Health Sciences Research Center in the College of Public Health.

Professor Grassian's research is on the chemistry and impacts of particles from nanometer to micrometer scales. In particular, her research is focused on environmental and health aspects of nanoscience and nanotechnology, surface chemistry of environmental interfaces, heterogeneous atmospheric chemistry, and climate impacts of atmospheric aerosols. She has published over 240 peer-reviewed publications and 16 book chapters. She has edited three books including Nanoscience and Nanotechnology: Environmental and Health Impacts published in 2008 by John Wiley and Sons. In 2003, Professor Grassian received a National Science Foundation Creativity Award and in 2005, she was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. More recently, she was named a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Chemistry and the American Vacuum Society in 2010 and, in 2011, became a Fellow of the American Chemical Society (ACS). In 2012, she received the Creative Advances in Environmental Science and Technology National Award from the ACS.

Vice-Chair: Christy Haynes

Christy Haynes is an Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota. Her research group focuses on the applications of analytical chemistry in the fields of immunology and toxicology, with particular interest in nanotoxicology.

Christy herself studied at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she graduated with a major in Chemistry and minors in Mathematics & Spanish. She then moved to Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, for doctoral work in plasmonic nanoparticles, where she completed a thesis titled: Fundamentals and Applications of Nanoparticle Optics and Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering. Previous to her current position at the University of Minnesota, Christy completed post-doctoral research at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where she focused on applying microelectrode amperometry to probe single immune cell exocytosis. Christy has published over 80 refereed papers and in 2013 won the Kavli Foundation Emerging Leader in Chemistry Lecture to discuss her group's nanotoxicology research.

Associate Editor: James Hutchison

Dr James E. (Jim) Hutchison earned his BS in Chemistry from the University of Oregon and his PhD in Organic Chemistry from Stanford University. He conducted postdoctoral research at the University of North Carolina. He joined the faculty at the University of Oregon in 1994 where he is currently the Lokey-Harrington Chair in Chemistry. His research interests are in green chemistry, materials chemistry and nanoscience. He led the development of the UO's curriculum in green organic chemistry, launched the university's pioneering Center in Green Nanoscience and is a member of the Governing Board of the ACS Green Chemistry Institute. He helped establish the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute (ONAMI) and founded, and now directs, ONAMI's Safer Nanomaterials and Nanomanufacturing Initiative (SNNI), a virtual center that unites scientists from across the northwest around the goals of designing greener nanomaterials and nanomanufacturing. He is a member of the National Research Council's Committee to Develop a Research Strategy for Environmental, Health, and Safety Aspects of Engineered Nanomaterials. He has won a number of awards, including the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship and an NSF-CAREER award. He is the author of more than 100 refereed publications and a textbook (Green Organic Chemistry: Strategies, Tools and Laboratory Experiments).

Associate Editor: Gregory Lowry

Dr Gregory Lowry is a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to this, he carried out his PhD and post-doctoral research at Stanford University until 2001. His research interests include mineral–organic macromolecule–water interfacial processes, and transport and reaction in porous media, with a focus on the fundamental physical/geochemical processes affecting the fate of engineered nanomaterials and organic contaminants in the environment. He is also investigating the processes affecting the permanence of CO₂ injected underground for carbon sequestration. He is an experimentalist working on a variety of fundamental and application-oriented research projects developing novel environmental technologies for restoring contaminated sediments and groundwater. His current projects include in situ sediment management using innovative sediment caps and DNAPL source zone remediation through delivery of reactive nanoparticles to the NAPL–water interface. He is currently the Deputy Director of the Center for Environmental Implications of NanoTechnology (CEINT).

Associate Editor: Kristin Schirmer

Professor Kristin Schirmer is presently the Head of the Department of Environmental Toxicology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Eawag, Switzerland. She is an Adjunct Professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and a lecturer at ETH Zürich. She studied for her PhD in Canada, at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, and remains associated with that university. Her undergraduate studies in biology were completed at the Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg and the University of Hohenheim, Germany.

Kristin has vast experience within biological environmental research; in 2007 she received three separate awards for her achievements: the SETAC Environmental Education Award, the Felix-Wankel Animal Welfare Research Award and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) Stimulus Award for Technology Transfer for the Ceramic Toximeter passive sampler.

Kristin's primary research interest is in environmental toxicology and animal cell biology. She has a particular interest in how environmental contaminants, including engineered nanoparticles, interact with aquatic organisms. Kristin is working towards linking changes on the molecular level to whole organism and population level effects and the advancement of in vitro approaches to enable resource-efficient environmental monitoring and a reduction in the use of animals in toxicology.

Board Member: Barbara Karn

Dr Barbara Karn is the Program Director for the Environmental Health and Safety of Nanotechnology at the National Science Foundation. She is also a senior advisor to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and co-founder of the Sustainable Nanotechnology Organization.

Barbara completed her BS in Chemistry at Ohio State University and Masters degrees at Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland State University, before receiving her PhD in Biology and Environmental Sciences at Florida International University.

Barbara has extensive experience within the environmental sector, currently focusing on nanotechnology. Previously, she has worked as an environmental scientist at the US Environment Protection Agency (EPA) and built a research program there in Nanotechnology and the Environment. She continues to work in the National Nanotechnology Initiative, a part of the U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy. She remains a sought-after lecturer on nanotechnology and the environment.

Barbara has been the Nanotechnology Scholar at Georgetown University's Program on Science in the Public Interest and was also named one of the Top Ten Experts in nanotechnology environment, health and safety issues by Nanotechnology Law and Business. She has published extensively within the nanotechnology and environment field.

Board Member: Frank von der Kammer

Dr Frank von der Kammer completed his PhD in 2005 with highest honour at Hamburg University of Technology, in the Department of Environmental Science and Technology. He is currently senior scientist and lecturer, the Head of Nanogeosciences Division and vice Head of the Department for Environmental Geosciences at the University of Vienna. In the past, Frank has acted as a visiting Professor at the University of Pau and at the University of Aix-Marseille, France.

Frank's research interests include environmental colloids, their dynamic behaviour and interaction with trace elements, natural nanoscale processes, nanoparticle characterization, engineered nanoparticles in the environment and the application of field flow fractionation to characterize nanoparticles in complex samples. He has published more than 50 peer-reviewed papers within both nano research and nanoparticle characterization.

Board Member: Michael F. Hochella Jr.

Professor Mike Hochella is a University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech, where he works in environmental science and geoscience. His research interests include nanoscience and mineral surface geochemistry, and elucidating the role that these play in earth science, with particular interest in environmental issues. In addition to this, Mike's team work on mineral–microbe interactions from both a geochemical and biochemical perspective and characterise aqueous partitioning reactions at oxide and silicate surfaces.

Mike completed his PhD at Stanford University and since then has held Fellow positions at the European Association of Geochemistry, the American Geophysical Union, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Geological Society of America, and the Geochemical Society. Throughout his career he has received numerous awards for his contribution to the Earth sciences, including the Dana Medal from the Mineralogical Society of America as well as Fulbright and Humboldt Foundation research fellowships, and has held advisory positions at various U.S. national agencies, including the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy. He has also served as President of the Geochemical Society and the Mineralogical Society of America.

Board Member: Robert Hamers

Professor Robert Hamers first completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin, before moving to Cornell University, where he studied for a Masters and then completed a PhD with the thesis title: State-to-state energy transfer in molecule–surface collisions: NO/Ir(111).

Currently, Robert is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a Department which he chaired between 2007–2010. In addition, Robert holds an Arthur Adamson Professorship in Chemistry and is the CTO and Co-Founder of Ilatonix, Inc., a company commercializing organosilicon electrolytes for safer lithium ion batteries. This year Robert contributed to the Frontiers in Chemical Research Distinguished Lecturer Series, Texas A&M University, and in 2012 won an American Chemical Society National Award in colloid and surface chemistry.

Robert's research interests predominantly focus on environmental health and safety of nanomaterials. His research investigates the environmental impact and potential safety issues associated with release of nanomaterials in the environment and his team are engaged in research projects aimed at understanding how the size, shape, and surface functional groups impact the bioavailability and toxicity of nanomaterials. He is particularly interested in the biochemical effects of nanoparticles, addressing questions such as “how do nanoparticles impact protein folding processes?” and “do nanoparticles induce genetic mutations or other trans-generational effects?”.

Board Member: Wei-Xian Zhang

Dr Wei-Xian Zhang graduated from Tongji University in Shanghai, from where he moved to John Hopkins University to complete his PhD in Environmental Engineering. Wei-Xian has also served as a Professor of environmental engineering and director of the Institute of Sustainable Nanotechnology at Lehigh University, PA.

Presently, Wei-Xian is based at the UNEP-Tongji Institute of Environment for Sustainable Development, and his research focuses on chemical and biological transformation of environmental contaminants and heavy metal ions. Wei-Xian's work on environmental nanotechnology has received extensive media attention in the past with feature articles appearing in the New York Times, Popular Science, Wall Street Journal and MIT Technology Review. In addition, Wei-Xian has experience as a consulting engineer for the Ministry of Electronic Industry of China.

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