March 25, 2015
Congratulations to Grace Schwartz on successfully defending and submitting her dissertation this week entitled: “Biogeochemical Transformations of Trace Element Pollutants During Coal Combustion Product Disposal.”
Grace’s dissertation focuses on the impacts of heavy metals released from coal ash storage and disposal. She was especially interested in the transformations of arsenic, selenium, and mercury. She concluded that the redox conditions (ie. how much oxygen is available for microbes) and coal ash characteristics (like sulfate and iron content) can have a drastic impact on the fate of coal ash in the environment. These characteristics and conditions should be considered when determining the fate of coal ash.
Grace has been a keystone in our lab during the last 5 years, teaching REU students, advising new lab members, and fixing every machine we have at least once!
We will certain miss her and can’t wait to see what comes next! Congratulations, Dr. Schwartz!