UA Superfund Research Center, Summer 2021 Newsletter

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Summer 2021 Newsletter

University of Arizona Superfund Research Center

Summer 2021 Newsletter

The University of Arizona Superfund Research Center (UA SRC) has been continually funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health (NIEHS) Sciences since 1989. The theme of the UA SRC is “Exposures, Health Impacts, and Risk for Mine Waste Contamination” (2020-2025).

Read all about what the UA SRC has been up to in the last quarter!

Awards, Honors & Recognitions

Celebrating Karletta Chief as a Distinguished Outreach Faculty

Congratulations to Dr. Karletta Chief, UA SRC Community Engagement Core Lead, on receiving the University Distinguished Outreach Faculty Award for 2021! This honor recognizes faculty who demonstrate outstanding commitment to outreach for the common good of the state and the nation, and it is the highest honor awarded in this category at the University of Arizona.

Dr. Robert Root Promoted to Associate Research Professor

Congratulations to Dr. Robert Root, who works on Project 4 with UA SRC, for his recent Promotion to Associate Research Professor in the Department of Environmental Science! Dr. Root is a geochemist with a research focus on molecular-scale mechanisms of biogeochemical cycling of nutrients and metal(loid)s in the environment and mineral weathering reactions at the rock-water interface.

Dr. Monica Ramirez-Andreotta Promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure

Congratulations to Dr. Monica Ramirez-Andreotta, UA SRC Research Translation Core Principal Investigator, who has been promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure at UArizona! Dr. Ramírez-Andreotta and her lab function under the philosophy that to successfully engage communities and students, it is essential to address critical environmental health problems identified by the community, and then work collaboratively through the problem-solving and research process.

Meetings, Conferences & Workshops

Karletta Chief Presents during “Water and COVID-19 in Indian Country”

On Wednesday, April 21, 2021, Dr. Karletta Chief joined a panel of Indigenous leaders and experts to discuss shared issues and concerns about the impact of COVID-19 on Native Nations during “Water and COVID-19 in Indian Country,” part of the Arizona Institutes for Resilience webinar series “Water Solutions for Our Warmer World.”

UA SRC Trainees Participate in SEES EarthWeek 2021

The UA SRC was well represented at the recent “EarthWeek 2021: Restore Our Earth” virtual symposium, held from March 29 to April 2, 2021. Eight UA SRC Trainees presented their research at the symposium.

UA SRC Trainees Place in Virtual SRP Summer Scientific Art/Photo Competition

The NIEHS Superfund Research Program (SRP) recently hosted a Virtual SRP Summer Scientific Art/Photo Competition that offered SRP Trainees a break from presenting their research, activities, and ideas via typical virtual platforms and meetings. The UA SRC did well in this competition, with three Trainees placing!

Research Updates

Ramirez-Andreotta Alleviating Environmental Health Disparities

Dr. Monica Ramirez-Andreotta, UA SRC Research Translation Core Principal Investigator, and a team of researchers just published a data science methods paper that demonstrates the integrated framework needed to solve the challenges of interoperability – the ability of computer systems or software to exchange and make use of information – within the environmental health sciences, as well as how to integrate citizen/community science (CS) data.

UArizona Receives $1.3M Federal Grant to Study Synthetic Chemicals Posing Risk to Regional Aquifer

A $1.3 million grant from the Department of Defense's Environmental Security Technology Certification Program will allow University of Arizona researchers to further study how synthetic chemicals known as PFAS move through soil and threaten groundwater.

Dr. Chorover Investigates the Use of Biochar to Remediate Dissolved Arsenic in Acid Mine Drainage

Dr. Jon Chorover’s UA SRC Project 4 research group and visiting scientist Dr. Dongmei Wang recently investigated the potential use of biochar to remediate dissolved arsenic in acid mine drainage (AMD). Release of toxic metal(loid)s from mine tailings via AMD occurs as a result of dissolution and colloidal dispersion, both of which pose significant risk to human health if introduced to neighboring ecosystems, groundwater, or drinking water supplies.

Sampling Prospective Capping Materials to Support a Vegetative Cover for Mine Tailings

The UA SRC Project 5 team recently sampled three different locations to support the project’s goal to characterize and identify the key bio-physico-chemical properties in prospective capping materials sourced from natural locations and mine stockpiles that are needed to support a successful vegetation cover.

Trainee Updates

Yoshira Ornelas Van Horne's Journey in Environmental Health

Yoshira Ornelas Van Horne, former UA SRC Trainee mentored by Dr. Paloma Beamer and Dr. Karletta Chief, just published her PhD dissertation findings in the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology.

Her publication, “Impacts to Diné Activities with the San Juan River after the Gold King Mine Spill,” focuses on understanding how the Gold King Mine spill affected the daily activities of the community members and the quality of the San Juan River. Her work also investigated health risks pre- and post-spill.

Trainee Pengfei Lui Looks at New Therapeutic Avenue for Treating Fibrotic Diseases

Post-Doctoral Associate and UA SRC Trainee Pengfei Liu recently published “The NRF2-LOC344887 signaling axis suppresses pulmonary fibrosis,” which details research to open a new therapeutic avenue for treating human pulmonary fibrosis and other fibrotic diseases.

Trainee Kira Zeider Assesses the Efficacy of Foliar Surfaces to Sample Aerosol Pollutants in Ambient Air

UA SRC Trainee Kira Zeider just published a journal article in Science of the Total Environment, “Foliar Surfaces as Dust and Aerosol Pollution Monitors: An Assessment by a Mining Site.” This article discusses how recent studies in the southwestern United States have shown that smelting processes and mine tailings emit heavy metal(loid)s that are distributed via wind dispersion to nearby communities.

Atmospheric Dust and Aerosol Transporting Contaminants at an Active Smelter Site

Recently graduated UA SRC Trainee Dr. Tania B. Rodriguez-Chavez just published a journal article, “Outdoor/Indoor Contaminant Transport by Atmospheric Dust and Aerosol at an Active Smelter Site.” This paper discusses how the activities associated with mining operations have been identified as sources of dust and aerosol that may contain metal and metalloid contaminants.

Assessing Lead Exposure in Children at an Alternative Superfund Site

Former UA SRC Trainee Dominika Heusinkveld's latest publication at Exposure and Health assesses children’s lead exposure at an Alternative Superfund site in Hayden-Winkelman, Arizona where lead exceedances in air and soil have been measured in the past 20 years. Heusinkveld graduated in May of 2020 with a dual Masters degrees from the UArizona Department of Environmental Science and the School of Journalism, and she is currently working for the Arizona Daily Star (#This is Tucson Newsletter)

Brusseau ML, Guo B, Huang D, Yan N, Lyu Y. Ideal versus Nonideal Transport of PFAS in Unsaturated Porous Media. Water Res. 2021 Jul 6;202:117405.
DOI: 10.1016/j.watres.2021.117405.
Brusseau ML, Van Glubt S. The influence of molecular structure on PFAS adsorption at air-water interfaces in electrolyte solutions. Chemosphere. 2021 Oct;281:130829.
DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2021.130829
Dietrich CC, Tandy S, Murawska-Wlodarczyk K, Banaś A, Korzeniak U, Seget B, Babst-Kostecka A. Phytoextraction efficiency of Arabidopsis halleri is driven by the plant and not by soil metal concentration. Chemosphere. 2021 Jul 5;285:131437.
DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2021.131437.
Heusinkveld, D., Ramírez-Andreotta, M.D., Rodríguez-Chávez, T. et al. Assessing Children’s Lead Exposure in an Active Mining Community Using the Integrated Exposure Uptake Biokinetic Model. Expo Health (2021).
DOI: 10.1007/s12403-021-00400-0
Liu P, Luo G, Dodson M, Schmidlin CJ, Wei Y, Kerimoglu B, Ooi A, Chapman E, Garcia JG, Zhang DD. The NRF2-LOC344887 signaling axis suppresses pulmonary fibrosis. Redox Biol. 2021 Jan;38:101766.
DOI: 10.1016/j.redox.2020.101766.DOI: 10.1016/j.redox.2020.101766.
Ramirez-Andreotta MD, Walls R, Youens-Clark K, Blumberg K, Isaacs KE, Kaufman D, Maier RM. Alleviating Environmental Health Disparities Through Community Science and Data Integration. Front. Sustain. Food Syst., 10 June 2021.
DOI: 10.3389/fsufs.2021.620470.
Rodríguez-Chávez TB, Rine KP, Almusawi RM, O’Brien-Metzger R, Ramírez-Andreotta M, Eric A. Betterton EA, Sáez AE. Outdoor/Indoor Contaminant Transport by Atmospheric Dust and Aerosol at an Active Smelter Site. Water Air Soil Pollut 232, 226 (2021).
DOI: 10.1007/s11270-021-05168-2
Schmidlin CJ, Shakya A, Dodson M, Chapman E, Zhang DD. The intricacies of NRF2 regulation in cancer. Semin Cancer Biol. 2021 May 18:S1044-579X(21)00146-2.
DOI: 10.1016/j.semcancer.2021.05.016.
Schmidlin CJ, Tian W, Dodson M, Chapman E, Zhang DD. FAM129B-dependent activation of NRF2 promotes an invasive phenotype in BRAF mutant melanoma cells. Mol Carcinog. 2021 May;60(5):331-341.
DOI: 10.1002/mc.23295.
Van Glubt S, Brusseau ML. Contribution of Nonaqueous-Phase Liquids to the Retention and Transport of Per and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) in Porous Media. Environ Sci Technol. 2021 Mar 16;55(6):3706-3715.
DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.0c07355.
Van Horne YO, Chief K, Charley PH, Begay MG, Lothrop N, Bell ML, Canales RA, Teufel-Shone NI, Beamer PI. Impacts to Diné activities with the San Juan River after the Gold King Mine Spill. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol. 2021 Feb 1.
DOI: 10.1038/s41370-021-00290-z.
Wang D, Root RA, Chorover J. Biochar-templated surface precipitation and inner-sphere complexation effectively removes arsenic from acid mine drainage. Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2021 Apr 18.
DOI: 10.1007/s11356-021-13869-8.
Wang Y, Khan N, Huang D, Carroll KC, Brusseau ML. Transport of PFOS in aquifer sediment: Transport behavior and a distributed-sorption model. Sci Total Environ. 2021 Jul 20;779:146444.
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.146444.
Zeider K, Van Overmeiren N, Rine KP, Sandhaus S, Saez AE, Sorooshian A, Munoz HC, Ramirez-Andreotta MD. Foliar Surfaces as Dust and Aerosol Pollution Monitors: An Assessment by a Mining Site. Science of the Total Environment. Volume 790, 2021, 148164.
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.148164.

View the full list of publications