Natural Resource Damage Assessment: I was part of a team at EPA evaluating the Sangamo/Weston Superfund site (South Carolina, USA). Examination of PCBs in the ecosystems of  Twelve Mile Creek and Lake Hartwell was necessary to evaluate the current status of this legacy site that had been remediated decades earlier, and risk to birds.  This work was published in Ecological Applications and Environmental Science and Technology.

Contaminant cycling: David Walters and I designed a mesocosm experiment to examine antagonistic mechanisms of contaminant cycling in stream foodwebs. This experiment was run under contract by Miami University. Increased primary productivity led to increased absorption of mercury in absolute terms by producers, but bloom dilution in phytoplankton and periphyton produced a net decrease in consumer mercury exposure.

Technology Assesment: Biological invasion of ports by aquatic organisms is a global problem, and many technologies have been proposed to mitigate the primary vector of cargo ships. Using standard laboratory bioassays and novel methods I invented,  I evaluated the acute toxicity of chemical, thermal, anoxic, and UV-light based methods of killing organisms found in ship ballast tanks.

Biotic Surveys:

Water Quality: Collection, handling, preparation, and analysis of water samples for all nutrient species is a standard tool I’ve used on numerous occasions, including in support of the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) program, and Lotic Intersite Nitrogen eXperiment (LINX). Hence I can also design and supervise water quality studies.

Ecosystems: I’ve worked in numerous freshwater ecosystems from headwater streams, rivers, wetlands, an in-land lakes to coasts and the open waters of the Great Lakes. I’m currently examining watersheds as  whole using hydrologic modeling. Hence I can work on numerous types of projects in numerous ecosystems, and at the landscape scale.

Hydrologic and Hydrodynamic Modeling: Resource shed analysis is built on both a spatially-explicit hydrologic runoff model, and a hydrodynamic particle tracking model. Output from these models must be visualized in order to interpret spatial source-areas supplying contaminated water within watersheds or in open water to downstream locations.

Data Mining: I’ve created my own Access databases and queries to mine data across multiple large EPA databases  examining landcover and mercury exposure in fish.

Project Management: I am fully versed in the entire project lifecycle of needs assessment, budgeting, proposal, funding, planning, quality control, personnel supervision, execution, analysis, write-up and presentation. I’ve written full-scale grant proposals, statements of work for bid solicitation, and MOUs to govern interagency agreements.

Scientific Review and Advice: I’ve identified and reported on federal research priorities, and been invited to comment on proposed federal regulations and rapid response plans. I regularly review grant proposals the National Science Foundation and other agencies, scientific manuscripts for numerous peer-reviewed journals, and EPA reports.

Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA); Risk analysis; Contaminant fate and transport; Chemical and physical bioassays, Emerging contaminants.

Field Work

Environmental monitoring; Water quality assessment; Synoptic field surveying; In-situ mesocosm experimentation; Organism collection, identification, and preparation; Stable isotope analysis; Whole-ecosystem manipulation.

Ecoinformatics

Geospatial analysis and mapping; Hydrologic modeling; Data mining; Database creation.

Project Management

Technician supervision in field and laboratory; QA/QC planning; Report and manuscript writing; Regulation, proposal and research evaluation and recommendation; Briefing, expert PowerPoint.

Funding Management

Research team recruitment; Proposal writing; Budgeting; Contractor liaison.

Publication in high-impact journals

Assess Natural Resource Damage and Estimate Exposure Risk

Lake Hartwell PCB Superfund site, Clemson, SC; Measure PCB contamination in spiders, aquatic and terrestrial insects. Findings: Aquatic to terrestrial transfer, short penetration of riparian zone, risk to birds.

Map Contaminant Source Areas

Create and manage multi-agency project; recruit researchers; invent geospatial analyses, display in GIS; Obtain $150,000 grant; Findings: Source area identification in watersheds and open-water.

Assess Mercury Cycling

Design mesocosm experiment; Obtain $85,000 internal funds; Write statement of work, official Quality Assurance Project Plan, work breakdown structure; Solicit bids, manage contract, approve methods; Statistically analyze and interpret data. Findings: Bloom dilution in periphyton and phytoplankton controls stream food web exposure.

Great Lakes Aquatic Nonindigenous Species Information System (GLANSIS)

Create online distributed database in collaboration with USGS; write inter-agency agreement; Obtain $35,000 external grant.

Assess Marine Technology

Design laboratory studies; Determine budgeting and schedules; Create novel methods to test acute toxicity of chemical, thermal, and anoxic methods designed to prevent biological invasion from marine cargo ship ballast tanks; Conduct bioassays.

Writing

16 published peer-reviewed scientific manuscripts; 5 technical memos and letters; 4 contributing book authorships, 4 manuscripts in preparation and review.

Speaking

50+ presentations including invited university seminars, management briefings, conference contributions and public lectures.