Ongoing Collaborative Research Activities

The ORNL Mercury SFA continues to engage a number of key collaborators in the project.

Funded Collaborators

Erik Björn

Umeå University

Erik Björn has been an associate professor and research group leader at the Department of Chemistry, Umeå University, Sweden since 2009. He received his Ph.D. in Analytical Science with emphasis in atomic spectroscopy from Umea University in 2002. His research focuses on trace metal speciation analysis and metal biogeochemistry. An important area of focus is the study of biogeochemical processes of mercury in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. The research program aims to both understand such processes at the molecular level and to establish their importance in natural environmental systems. To accomplish this, Dr. Bjorn’s group develops and implements new, powerful analytical methods and experimental strategies. Dr. Bjorn has produced over 90 articles and reports within these research fields and he has worked extensively with undergraduate teaching and public research dissemination. He currently serves as an Editorial Board Member for the journal International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. Dr. Björn has been main or co-advisor for approximately 20 Ph.D. students and Post Docs, and principal investigator for a dozen major external research projects.

Hongmei Chen

Old Dominion University

Hongmei Chen is a research assistant professor in the department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia, USA. Her research interests include but are not limited to: biogeochemical cycle of natural dissolved organic matter (DOM) in aquatic and soil environments, photochemical and microbial processing of DOM, interaction between DOM and metals (e.g. Hg, Fe, and Pu). Previously, she worked with Dr. Baohua Gu as a postdoc in the Environmental Sciences Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory during 2015 – 2017. She earned her B.S. in Marine Chemistry from Xiamen University, China. Dr. Chen completed her Ph.D. study at Old Dominion University in 2014, supervised by Drs. Patrick G. Hatcher and Kenneth Mopper.

Cynthia Gilmour

Smithsonian Research Institution

Cynthia Gilmour (Smithsonian Environmental Research Center) has 30+ years experience studying the mercury methylation process at multiple scales and in laboratory and field settings. Her research group studies the biogeochemistry of mercury in the environment, with an emphasis on the microbial mercury methylation process in sediments and soils. Major research programs included studies of mercury in the Florida Everglades, Chesapeake Bay and the adjoining continental shelf, the METAALICUS whole-watershed mercury addition study at the Experimental Lakes Area in Ontario, recent field trials of activated carbon as a potential remediation tool for Hg-contaminated sediments and soils, and most recently development and testing of molecular tools to assess hgcAB+ in nature. She has published more than 80 research papers in the subject area, including seminal papers on the influence of sulfate on Hg methylation, the isolation and characterization of Hg-methylating microbes, and the bioavailability of Hg for microbial methylation. Her lab maintains an extensive collection of Hg-methylating microbes. Dr. Gilmour has served on a number of advisory boards including the EPA Science Advisory Board, the San Francisco Bay Mercury Studies Program, Chesapeake Bay Program’s Scientific and Technical Advisory Board, and the technical committees for the International Conferences on Mercury as a Global Pollutant..

Patrick Hatcher

Old Dominion University

Patrick Hatcher received his B.S. in Chemistry in 1970 from North Carolina State University, his M.S. in Marine Chemistry in 1974 from the University of Miami, Florida, and his Ph.D. in Chemistry in 1980 from the University of Maryland. In 1989 he joined Penn State University as Associate Professor. Promoted to Professor in 1995, he was appointed Director of the Center for Environmental Chemistry and Geochemistry in 1996, and to Adjunct Professor of Chemistry in 1996. In 1998, he joined the Department of Chemistry at Ohio State where he directed the NSF-funded Environmental Molecular Science Institute and held a faculty position in the Department of Geological Sciences. Dr. Hatcher came to Old Dominion University in 2006 where he serves as the Batten Endowed Chair in Physical Sciences, professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Faculty Director of the College of Sciences Major Instrumentation Center, and the Executive Director of the Virginia Coastal Energy Research Consortium.

Heileen (Helen) Hsu-Kim

Duke University

Heileen (Helen) Hsu-Kim is the Yoh Family Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering at Duke University. She is an environmental engineer with expertise in environmental aquatic geochemistry. Her research tackles problems related to trace metals and the biogeochemical processes that alter their distribution in nature and engineered environments. The applications of this work include remediation of metal pollution in soil and water, the impacts of energy production on water resources, global environmental health, environmental nanogeoscience, and metal resource recovery. Dr. Hsu-Kim's current research projects are focused on environmental mercury contamination, pollutant metal exposures to vulnerable populations, the impacts of coal ash disposal on water quality, and technologies to recover rare earth elements from solid wastes. A central theme to her work is the utilization of chemical speciation for understanding and predicting the persistence, mobility and bioavailability of metals and minerals in the aquatic environment.

Marie Kurz

Drexel University

Marie Kurz is an eco-geochemist: an aqueous geochemist interested in the coupled dynamics of ecology and geochemistry in freshwater systems. As a scientist, her goal is to both advance basic understanding and provide concepts and tools that support effective management and restoration of stream water quality and ecosystem integrity. Dr. Kurz's research broadly addresses the transport and transformation of chemical constituents in freshwater systems. Of current focus are the interactions between chemical constituents and the structure and functioning of aquatic ecosystems and the mechanisms controlling spatio-temporal patterns in stream chemistry and ecosystem functioning at reach to watershed scales. She earned a PhD from the University of Florida and was a Fellow in the NSF Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) program, which trained scientists to address emerging issues in coupled human and natural systems and the interplay of policy and science required to manage them (‘Adaptive Management: Wise Use of Water, Wetlands & Watersheds’). Following her PhD she worked as a Staff Scientist at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research–UFZ where her research focused on the impact of the hyporheic zone on whole-stream solute and ecosystem dynamics. Currently, Dr. Kurz is a Senior Scientist and Head of the Biogeochemistry Section at the The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University and an Assistant Research Professor in Drexel’s Department of Biodiversity, Earth and Environmental Sciences.

Adam Ward

Indiana University

Environmental scientist Adam Ward joined SPEA in 2014 following three years with the University of Iowa in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science. He specializes in quantifying the transport of water, energy, and pollutants through hydrological landscapes, and the ecological implications of these fluxes. Dr. Ward's research focuses on hydrological connections between streams, their landscapes, and their aquifers as a control on biogeochemical processes and ecosystem function, particularly the transport and fate of compounds in the environment. Specific interests include transport of nutrients in agricultural landscapes, contaminants of emerging concern in streams and wetlands, and carbon export from catchments. Ward's Watershed Hydrology & Engineering group uses a combination of field-based experiments, environmental observation, and numerical modeling to quantify couplings between physical, biological, and chemical systems. These skills are applied in interdisciplinary teams to predict water quantity, water quality, and ecosystem responses to changes in key drivers including land use change, land management activities, and climate change. Ward is also interested in innovative teaching methods, having prototyped several service-learning activities and innovative teaching methods in his existing courses.

Non-Funded Collaborators

The ORNL CI-SFA continues to engage a number of key collaborators in the project (see below). In FY19, Themes 2 and 3 collaborated with EMSL staff to identify the proteomic and metabolomic signatures that will enable identification of the HgcAB alternative (native) biochemical function (proposal #50174) and to identify organic molecules responsible for mercury complexation in dissolved organic matter isolated from EFPC using fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance spectroscopy (proposal #48386), respectively. External collaborators Cynthia Gilmour (Smithsonian Environmental Research Center), Adam Ward (Indiana University), and Marie Kurz (Drexel University) continue to contribute to SFA milestones in Theme 2: Microbial Community Processes and the Field-Scale Modeling Activity.

Although the SFA’s primary objective is fundamental science, it is important that project personnel have the opportunity to translate scientific discovery into information relevant to the DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) and the broader DOE complex. We continue to fulfill this need through active engagement with local Oak Ridge EM staff (Elizabeth Phillips, Laura Wilkerson, and Brian Henry), EM headquarter staff (Rod Rimando and Kurt Gerdes), and the site-specific advisory panels.

Former Collaborators

Judy Wall

University of Missouri, (retired)

Dr. Judy Wall works on a variety of research areas in the University of Missouri Biochemistry Division including environmental microbiology, bioremediation of toxic metals, and the genetics and biochemistry of sulfate-reducing bacteria. Dr. Wall is a member of the DOE Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee, the Systems Biology Knowledgebase (KBase) science advisory committee, and Chair of the ORNL BioEnergy Sciences Center Science Advisory Board. She was editor in chief of Applied and Environmental Microbiology from 1995-2001 and served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Bacteriology, Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Environmental Microbiology, and F1000 Biology section. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Microbiology and was the 2014 SEC Professor of the Year for the University of Missouri.