Ph.D.    University of Michigan, Environmental Health Sciences, 1985

B.S.      Western Michigan University, Chemistry, 1976

As a post-doc at Argonne beginning in 1985, studied the environmental fate of coal liquids and other alternative fuels as part of the coal toxicology program. Measured partition coefficients and photo degradation rates for over 200 constituents. Continued research in this area after joining Argonne staff in 1986. In the 1990s, research evolved to supporting DOE EM’s site cleanups at Fernald and other radiological sites from the post-WWII era. This work involved designing site characterization programs involving in situ and laboratory measurements of residual radioactivity in soils, groundwater, and other media, and the analysis of health risk assessments for setting cleanup goals. This work was coordinated with ongoing site cleanup and waste management activities directed by DOE. In the 2000s, radiological remediation work shifted to non-EM sites and U.S. Army and Nave radiological sites, while research focus expanded around environmental assessments under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Assessments involved mainly energy related federal actions, including those related to energy generation, transmission, nuclear fuel production, and fossil fuel extraction, involving several federal agencies, including DOE, DOI, and BOR. Assessment focus areas included water quality, human and ecological health risks, accident risks, and waste management. During the 2010s, work continued in both the site cleanup and environmental assessment areas, including cleanups at non-EM radiological sites. Environmental assessments for NRC focused on nuclear fuel production facility licensing. Major new assessments were performed for various DOI agencies focused on renewable energy, land use planning for oil shale leasing, hydropower operations, and offshore oil production. Current assessment work focuses on decommissioning oil platforms on the Pacific Outer Continental Shelf. Recent work involved deriving ecological screening values or per-and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS) for soil and water from published toxicity values for ecological receptors. New research interests include evaluating the environmental risks of bio-based plastics to inform their design, plastics in a circular economy, and use of machine learning to estimate toxicological properties of emerging contaminants such as PFAS.