Environmental Engineering & Toxicology

Fellow

Aaron Maruzzo

2021 Fellow
Aaron Maruzzo is a MPH graduate from the Environmental Health Sciences department at UC Berkeley School of Public Health. He joined UC Berkeley after three years of working as the Water Lab Analyst for the municipal water company in the U.S...
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Nithya Ramanathan selected as a 2021 TED Fellow

Nithya Ramanathan, Founder and CEO of Nexleaf, is shaping the future by keeping vaccines safe.
April 28, 2021
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Miner's research on PFAS on Everest featured in GQ magazine

In April of 2019, a team of scientific researchers and documentarians arrived at Mount Everest’s southern basecamp in Nepal to measure the impacts of climate change and human activity on the world’s tallest mountain. The pollution team, led by University of Maine Assistant Professor Kimberley Miner, lugged heavy scientific equipment up the most popular ascent route. At each stop, Miner's team took samples of snow, the same snow climbers were boiling and drinking, the same snow that melted each summer and provided water for people living in the valleys below.
February 6, 2021
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Richter publishes on how ignorance is produced through regulatory structure in the case of PFAS

Lauren Richter, Alissa Cordner & Phil Brown, Sociological Perspectives Producing Ignorance Through Regulatory Structure: The Case of Per-and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) Abstract:
November 7, 2020
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Clean water and sanitation: How design can influence behavioral changes

Jeannette Laramee writes that designs for clean water and sanitation infrastructure in developing areas should encourage use to achieve the goal of creating healthy communities.
November 2, 2020
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Kung's organization winner of Coastal Pollution Challenge

In July, Schmidt Marine Technology Partners announced the winners of the inaugural Coastal Pollution Challenge, created to support the development of innovative solutions to reduce nutrient pollution plaguing the globe’s waterways. The winners are three start-up companies and a university. ...
October 19, 2020
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Vaquero quoted in LA Times on Exide bankruptcy and environmental cleanup uncertainty

For decades, families across a swath of southeast Los Angeles County have lived in an environmental disaster zone, their kids playing in yards polluted with brain-damaging lead while they wait on a state agency to remove contaminated soil from thousands of homes. Now, the cleanup faces even greater uncertainty. A bankruptcy plan by Exide Technologies, which operated the now-closed lead-acid battery smelter in Vernon that is blamed for the pollution, would allow the site to be abandoned with the remediation unfinished.
October 19, 2020
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Phasing out is not enough — the problem with fluorinated chemicals in wildlife

Editor's note: The following piece authored by Anna Robuck was first published on The Hill's website.
October 10, 2020
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Robuck wins NIEHS KC Donnelly Externship for research on PFAS

Anna Robuck is doctoral student working with Rainer Lohmann, Ph.D., at the University of Rhode Island SRP Center. For her externship, Robuck will travel to Research Triangle Park, North Carolina to work with Mark Strynar, Ph.D., and James McCord, Ph.D., at the U.S. EPA's Office of Research and Development.
July 16, 2020
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Sue Chiang: The Foodware Conundrum

Universities, cities, and now even some countries are starting to phase out single-use plastics, but what will they switch to? Tons of disposable foodware, including products made from agricultural waste and labeled compostable, are used and discarded every day. Some of the products contain chemicals that are associated with adverse health effects such as hormone disruption, increased cholesterol levels, and increased risk of cancer. Ideally, we should phase out single-use plastics and encourage the development of alternatives that are manufactured with and contain inherently safer chemicals. How do we incentivize a transition to the best reusable products?
May 27, 2020