I’m interested in environmental geochemistry and public health, especially the fate and transport of contaminants and the potential for community-based participatory research / citizen science tools to reduce exposure to these toxins and improve science literacy. My current work involves developing a field test kit for lead (Pb) in soils and studying the impact of soil lead contamination in New York and Peru.
Learn more about my work on the Earth Institute State of the Planet blog and on Academic Minute.
Peru New York City
Since my first trip in 2014, I’ve spent about 3 months in Peru working to map and better understand exposure to soil Pb in small towns impacted by past and present mining activities. Together with our local collaborators, I organized interviews for 150 parents, presented our maps of soil Pb analyzed by a portable X-ray fluorescence, and then trained parents to use the field kit to test the soil where their children play. I wanted to investigate whether the field kit for soil Pb would be applicable in New York City, a place where people have access to send in samples to a lab. After my first round of backyard results came back far above the residential standard for Pb, I expanded our project to mapping backyard soil in Greenpoint and Williamsburg in Brooklyn, the area with the highest exposure to Pb as published by the NYC Department of Health.