Dr. Tarek Abdel-Fattah holds a B.S. and M.S. degree in Chemistry from Alexandria University and a Ph.D. degree in Inorganic and Materials Chemistry from Northeastern University, Boston. Currently, he is an Associate Professor of Chemistry and the Director of the Applied Research Center (ARC) at Christopher Newport University (CNU).  He was the Past President of Sigma Xi Tidewater Chapter of Virginia 2004-2005 and currently holds the Program Chair position of the chapter. Also, he is the chair elect for the American Chemical Society (ACS) for the Hampton Road section 2006-2007. He has published over 20 papers, 2 patents and over 50 presentations in national and international meetings. He has been awarded First Prize from the Physical Sciences Division of the American Association of Advancement of Science (AAAS).  He has been awarded twice the American Association for Educational Engineering (ASEE) award of the summer faculty fellowship program at NASA Langley Research Center.  He is the recipient of the NASA Faculty Fellowship Certificate of Recognition for different projects concerning nanotechnology for aerospace applications. He was a Christopher Newport University Teaching Fellow in 2003.

Dr. Diana Aga is an associate professor at the Chemistry Department of the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York. She obtained her Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of Kansas in 1995, and afterwards worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology in Switzerland. She joined the Chemistry department at the University of Nebraska-Kearney as an assistant professor in 1998 and received an NSF CAREER award. In 2002, she joined the faculty of the University at Buffalo, and received an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship award in 2007. Her research interests include analytical methods development to study the fate and transport of persistent organic pollutants and emerging contaminants (pharmaceuticals, nanomaterials) in the environment.

Rickard Arvidsson is a Ph.D. candidate at Chalmers University of Technology. His work involves environmental risk assessment of nanoparticles. His background is in bioengineering with a focus on chemical environmental science.

Dr. Avinash Bajaj is currently conducting Postdoctoral studies with Prof. Vincent M. Rotello in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Massachusetts – Amherst. He has completed his graduate studies at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, INDIA with Prof. Santanu Bhattacharya in the area of Gene Delivery by liposomes and Lipopolymers. Currently, he is working in the area of bionanotechnology to develop new biomaterials for applications as biosensors, gene delivery or drug/protein delivery carriers.

Dr. Dhimiter Bello is an Asst. Professor of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene in the Department of Work Environment at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Dr. Bello is an analytical chemist and occupational hygienist who have received in-depth training on human exposure assessment for epidemiology and hazard control. Dr. Bello’s main research focus is on the adverse human health effects of workplace and environmental exposures to toxic chemicals, such as isocyanates and engineered nanomaterials. More specifically, he is interested in the biological significance of exposures, relative contribution of each exposure route (inhalation and skin in particular) to the total body burden, exposure & dose metrics, as well as disease prevention. He believes that major developments and breakthroughs in the exposure sciences and public health research will come from exploration of the interdisciplinary space and is a strong proponent of interdisciplinary research and teaching. Dr. Bello collaborates routinely with MDs, epidemiologists, material scientists, clinical chemists, and engineers, to name a few in several institutions, including at Yale University School of Medicine, Harvard School of Public Health and MIT and other departments within the UMass System. Dr. Bello has authored over 20 peer reviewed publications in international journals.

Dr. Mike Borda is a senior project geochemist/microbiologist with two years of environmental remediation experience and 10 years of academic research experience in environmental chemistry and microbiology. He is a Project Geochemist with Golder Associates Inc. in the Mt. Laurel, New Jersey office.  Dr. Borda’s areas of expertise include remedial design with an emphasis on in situ and ex situ engineered bioremediation, in situ remediation systems using chemical oxidants and reductants, soil and groundwater geochemical and microbiological investigations, and development of innovative remedial technologies. Dr. Borda is the Director of Science and oversees the Research and Development efforts of The Golder nano-scale zero-valent iron (nZVI) Division. He has experience in the designing and implementing remediation systems using reagent injection into the subsurface. Prior to joining Golder, Dr. Borda was a research assistant professor leading a group of scientists working on the geochemical and biological aspects that govern the cycling of elements in the environment.  Dr. Borda has published over 30 peer reviewed articles, book chapters and encyclopedia contributions in the environmental chemistry and microbiology fields and he holds United States and International patents for an innovative remediation technology.

Dr. Jennifer Bouldin is an Assistant Research Professor and the Director of Arkansas State University’s Ecotoxicology Research Facility.  Her research incorporates standardized US EPA toxicity testing for the detection of aqueous contaminants, new product testing, pesticide interactions, and aquatic toxicity and food chain transfer of nanoparticles.  She and her coauthors have published several peer-reviewed articles from their nanoparticle research including the research presented here: Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, 27(9):1958-1963.

Dr. Benny Chefetz is the Chairman for the Department of Soil and Water Sciences and a faculty of the Agriculture, Food and Environment Department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His current research emphasizes physico-chemical processes of organic pollutants that occur in natural and contaminated soils and sediments. His research aims to expand our knowledge of the interactions of agrochemicals and hydrophobic compounds with soil and sedimentary organic matter (SOM), and to define the sorption mechanism between theses compounds and specific structural functional groups of the SOM. Sorption-desorption (kinetics, hysteresis, competition and modeling), metabolism and structural characterization of the sorbent are studied in order to understand the fate of organic compounds in different environmental niches. Primary focus areas presently include (i) sorption and desorption processes of organic pollutants by plant biopolymers (cuticular matter), (ii) the fate of nonionic organic pollutants in rivers and near-shore sediments, (iii) the effects of wastewater irrigation on the transport and mobility of pesticides and pharmaceutical compounds in agricultural soils, and (iv) removal of metallic ions from water by adsorption and microwave radiation.

Seth Coe-Sullivan is co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of QD Vision. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in May 2005, and his thesis work on incorporating quantum dots into hybrid organic/inorganic LED structures is the technology basis of QD Vision. His work spans quantum dot materials, new fabrication techniques including thin film deposition equipment design, and device architectures for efficient QD-LED light emission. Seth has over 20 papers and patents pending in the fields of organic light emitting devices, quantum dot LEDs and nanotechnology fabrication.  He was awarded Technology Review Magazine’s TR35 Award in 2006, naming him one of the top 35 innovators under the age of 35.  In 2007, BusinessWeek named him one of the top young entrepreneurs under the age of 30.  Dr. Sullivan graduated in the class of 1999 from Brown University with an Sc.B. in electrical engineering. He then spent a year as a Staff Engineer at the Boston based research company Foster-Miller, Inc., in the Emerging Technology division of the Materials Technology Group, before departing for MIT. He is a member of Brown University’s Engineering Advisory Council.

Jessica Coleman is a research biologist and graduate student employed by the Army Corp of Engineers Research and Development Center in Vicksburg, MS. Jessica is in her last year of graduate school in a co-op agreement between the Army Corp and Mississippi College located in Clinton, MS. Her graduate research has focused on the ecological impacts of nano aluminum on the terrestrial worm, Eisenia fetida.

Lindsay Dahlben is a graduate student in the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department at Northeastern University in Boston, MA.  Her research interests include the economic and environmental assessment of nanomanufacturing and life cycle assessment associated with carbon nanotubes.  She received her B.S. in mechanical engineering in 2007 from the University of Rochester in Rochester, NY.

Dr. Michael Ellenbecker teaches industrial hygiene in the Department of Work Environment at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. In his dual role as Director of  the Toxics Use Reduction Institute (TURI), he manages a staff of fifteen and has guided the Institute’s research program from its inception in 1989. Dr. Ellenbecker is currently studying occupational and environmental exposures to engineered nanoparticles as part of the University’s NSF-funded Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center for High-Rate Nanomanufacturing (CHN). He is co-author of “Ventilation for Control of the Work Environment,” the standard textbook for the design of industrial exhaust systems. Harvard-educated, he holds Doctoral and Master degrees in Environmental Health Sciences and Industrial Hygiene and is a Certified Industrial Hygienist.

Dr. Howard Fairbrother graduated from Oxford University (England) with a B.S. in Chemistry in 1989 and received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Northwestern University in 1994. He completed his Postdoctoral at the University of California, Berkley in 1997. Dr. Fairbrother is currently a joint professor in the Department of Chemistry and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at John Hopkins University.

Dr. Steffen Foss Hansen holds a Postdoctoral position at the Technical University of Denmark where he studies risk assessment and governance of nanotechnologies and nanomaterials and teaches a course in Nanotechnology and the Environment. He has a well documented track record in scientific issues related to risk assessment of nanomaterials, covering risk governance under scientific uncertainty, exposure assessment and hazard identification and characterization of nanoparticles. During the last 3 years he has published more than 10 papers in high-ranking journals, such as a 2008 paper in Nature Nanotechnology. He was key-note speaker at a recent symposium on nanotechnology and the environment held by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He has also worked at the Project for Emerging Nanotechnologies in Washington, D.C. and the Nanomanufacturing Center of Excellence at the University of Massachusetts – Lowell, MA, USA.

Saikat Ghosh is currently a graduate student pursuing a doctorate in the Department of Plant, Soil, and Insect Sciences at the University of Massachusetts – Amherst. His research focuses on studying the colloidal interaction behavior of the engineered nanoparticles as affected by the aquatic conditions and in the presence of natural organic matter (NOM).

Dr. Subhasis Ghoshal is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering & Applied Mechanics. He joined McGill as an Assistant Professor in 1997 after completing his Ph.D. at Carnegie Mellon University and a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. His research is in the area of Environmental Engineering and currently focuses on bioremediation of polluted sites and groundwater, and on carbon dioxide sequestration technologies for greenhouse gas mitigation. Prof. Ghoshal has contributed substantially to the understanding of NAPL-water interfacial mass transport processes and its impacts on remediation performance and groundwater quality. He has worked extensively on NAPL dissolution, biodegradation and interphase mass transfer in NAPL-surfactant systems.

Patricia Gillespie is a Ph.D. graduate student at the New York University School of Medicine in the Department of Environmental Medicine. Her thesis project, under the direction of Dr. Lung Chi Chen, involves investigating the effects of inhaled nickel nanoparticles on the central nervous system. In 2007, she was the recipient of the Society of Toxicology Mary O. Amdur Student Award given by the Inhalation and Respiratory Specialty Section. Since then, she has received a number of additional awards and has second authored a peer-reviewed publication. She has several publications in press that relates to her thesis project and other works of her laboratory group.

Scott Hall is the Manager of ENVIRON's Ecotoxicology Group in Nashville, Tennessee, overseeing both consulting and laboratory testing services. With over 20 years experience as an aquatic toxicologist and biologist, Mr. Hall has published over 20 peer-reviewed articles on topics related to the aquatic toxicity of chemicals, effluents, and in-stream bioassessment.

Dr. Martin Hassellöv is an Associate Professor in analytical environmental chemistry at the University of Gothenburg (UG), Sweden. He received his Ph.D. in 1999 on the development of field-flow fractionation coupled to inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry for the determinations of size based distributions of trace elements on natural nanoparticles. During his Fulbright Commission Postdoctoral fellowship at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, he studied colloidal transport of plutonium in groundwater. Subsequently, at UG his group studies the role of natural colloidal nanoparticles in the reaction and transport of metals in various aquatic environments. He has conducted research on environmental chemistry of synthetic nanomaterials at least since 2005. Now several interdisciplinary projects have been funded where Hassellöv is engaged in exposure assessment, exposure characterization, fate and behavior studies and development of new detection methods for nanoparticles in complex environmental samples. Hassellöv is involved in several knowledge transfer networks in Europe and US and has been reviewer for the UK Environmental NanoInitiative. He has frequently been invited speaker or author to present the state-of-the-art on analysis and characterization method for engineered nanoparticles in the environment.

Dr. Feng He is a Remediation Engineer of Golder Associates Ltd. (Atlanta office) where he started his consulting career after graduating from Auburn University with a Ph.D. degree. He has assessed, designed, and implemented the innovative remediation practices in LNAPL and DNAPL contaminated sites. His main research was directed at enhancing reactivity and transport of nanoscale zero-valent iron (ZVI) through ZVI surface modification using low-cost polysaccharides (PCT application). His research also extended to mercury immobilization using iron sulfide nanoparticles (U.S. patent application) and new Pd nano-material synthesis.

Dr. Ed Heithmar is a research chemist at the U.S. EPA National Exposure Research Laboratory in Las Vegas, NV.  He received his Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh. At EPA, his research has involved trace elemental methods using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICPMS), especially automated sample introduction systems for difficult matrices, and hyphenated methods of analysis (various separation techniques coupled with ICPMS) for speciation of toxic elements.  Recently, he has applied ICPMS, both alone and in hyphenated approaches, to characterizing concentrations and size distributions of metal and metal-oxide based nanomaterials in environmental media. He has organized symposia on environmental characterization of nanomaterials at national and international meetings.

Dr. Kelvin Higa received his Ph.D. from the University of Hawaii in 1984 and worked as a Postdoctoral at Duke University with Richard Wells from 1985 to 1986. He was also a Postdoctoral at the Naval Warfare Center from 1986-1987 and worked for NAVAIR from 1987 to the present. Dr. Higa has over 20 patents including patents on the synthesis of nano aluminum powders and nanoenergetic based lead-free primers.  From 1998 to 2000, Dr. Higa managed ONR’s basic research programs in organic, organometallic and environmental (6.1-6.3) chemistry.

Nina Horne is a policy consultant completing graduate work at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California-Berkeley, with an emphasis on science and technology policy and security. As a consultant with the State Department, Nina analyzes regulatory policy and technology. She is currently conducting a comparative analysis of nanotechnology regulatory frameworks for the U.S. and the EU, as well as an analysis of nanosecurity issues. Her approach emphasizes a balance of legal, economic, and political analysis to determine politically viable and economically beneficial policy shifts. Her work as a policy consultant follows a career as an academic publisher in advanced biology and earth sciences for the two largest global educational publishers. In this role, Nina commercialized over a hundred successful products from conception to sales and marketing.

Dr. Robert Hurt is Professor of Engineering at Brown University and the Director of Brown’s Institute for Molecular and Nanoscale Innovation (IMNI).   He received a bachelor’s degree from Michigan Technological University and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in chemical engineering in 1987.  He held posts in the Central R&D Division of Bayer AG in Leverkusen, Germany and at the Combustion Research Facility of Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, California, before joining Brown in 1994. Professor Hurt serves as editor of the scientific journal Carbon and was the Technical Program Chair for the international conference Carbon2004. He manages the Laboratory for Environmental and Health Nanoscience, which focuses on the synthesis and characterization of nanomaterials and their implications and applications in biology, energy, and environment. He received the Silver Medal of the Combustion Institute in 1996 and the Graffin Lecture Award of the American Carbon Society in 2004/2005.

Dr. Jacqueline Isaacs is an Associate Director of the NSF-funded Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center for High-rate Nanomanufacturing (CHN) and a Professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at Northeastern University. Dr. Isaacs has a B.S. in Metallurgical Engineering and Materials Science from Carnegie Mellon University and M.S and Ph.D. Degrees in Materials Science and Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Since joining Northeastern University, she has worked on assessing the economic, environmental and technological tradeoffs for existing and emerging technologies, and was awarded a National Science Foundation Career Award for her work. Her role in the CHN involves leading the responsible nanomanufacturing research thrust team, whose research includes screening and monitoring of nanomaterials, applying life cycle assessment methods to manufacturing processes, assessing economic viability as well as the regulatory and social implications of emerging technologies. She is a Co-PI on an NSF Nanoscale Interdisciplinary Research Team award entitled: “Nanotechnology in the Public Interest: Regulatory Challenges, Capacity, and Policy Recommendations." Dr. Isaacs has been an invited speaker to numerous workshops and forums on environmental health and safety issues related to nanomaterials, and serves as a liaison to the Boston Museum of Science NSF-funded Nanotechnology Informal Science Education Network (NISE-Net).

Lorin Jakubek is a graduate student in Biomedical Engineering working with Robert Hurt on the interaction of carbon nanomaterials with electrically active cells.  She received her undergraduate degree from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Chemical Engineering.

Wei Jiang is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Plant, Soil and Insect Sciences, at the University of Massachusetts – Amherst. Her research interests involve the risk assessment of engineered nanoparticles and the adhesion and toxicity mechanism of nanoparticles to bacteria. She has published several papers in international journals.

Dr. Ralf Kaegi leads the particle laboratory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag). Dr. Kaegi was involved in the development of several sampling devices designed to representatively collect ultrafine aerosol particles from ambient air. His current research is focused on aquatic colloids and includes topics such as the development of new analytical techniques to count nanoparticles in aqueous systems, the detection and characterization of nanoparticles in the aquatic environment and the removal of arsenic from contaminated waters using iron colloids. Dr. Kaegi holds a diploma thesis in Earth Sciences from the University of Basel, and a Ph.D. in Experimental Petrology from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich. He spent 5 years at the Swiss Federal Institute for Materials Science and Research were he was involved in research topics of Aerosol Science. In 2006 he was offered to lead the particle laboratory at Eawag.

Dr. Agnes Kane is Professor and Chair of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Brown University where she has pursued research on fiber toxicology and nanotoxicology with funding from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, US EPA, and NSF. She is board-certified in anatomic pathology and has studied murine models of asbestos-induced disease. She is the Director of the Training Program in Environmental Pathology at Brown University, now in its 17th year of funding from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. She also directs the Training Core for the Superfund basic Research Program Grant at Brown. Through these training grants, she is developing strategies to build new interdisciplinary research and educational initiatives in nanotechnology. Her research focuses on the potential health effects of environmental and occupational exposure to asbestos fibers, mixed dusts, and nanomaterials. Dr. Kane collaborates with Dr. Robert Hurt in the Division of Engineering to identify the physical and chemical parameters of engineered nanomaterial relevant for toxicity. The long-term goal of this research is to synthesize of purify “green” nanomaterials in order to exploit their unique properties for applications in environmental sensing and remediation and in nanomedicine.

Dr. Seoktae (Steve) Kang is a Postdoctoral in Menachem Elimelech's group at Yale University. His research is mainly focused on the fate and transport of nano-sized materials and microbial pathogens. In particular, he has studied the bacterial toxicity of carbon based nanomaterials such as single walled carbon nanotubes, multi-walled carbon nanotubes, and C60 in aquatic environments.

Dr. Barbara Karn is an environmental scientist at the EPA where she has built and managed a research grant program in nanotechnology and the environment. She has sustained a community of researchers in nanotechnology and the environment-both applications and implications-and brought nanotechnology into EPA’s programs and mission. Through the interagency Nanoscale Science and Technology subcommittee of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, she has led workshops to build consideration of the environment and human health in other government agency research programs related to nanotechnology. She has helped provide leadership in international activities involving nanotechnology in the environment and human health. Her current focus is “Green” nanotechnologies—including using green chemistry, green engineering and environmentally benign manufacturing to make new nanomaterials and products, or using nanotechnology to prevent pollution in current processes. Dr. Karn is a senior advisor for the project on Emerging Nanotechnologies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Nanotechnology Scholar for Georgetown University's Program on Science in the Public Interest.

Dr. Pu-Chun Ke is an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Clemson University and the Editor-in-Chief of The Open Nanoscience Journal. Since 2004 his lab has first demonstrated the delivery of RNA using a single-walled carbon nanotube transporter, invented the use of lysophospholipids for efficiently suspending single-walled carbon nanotubes, and first deciphered the biophysical mechanisms of nanotoxicity using molecular dynamics simulations. Dr. Ke obtained his Ph.D. degree in physics in 2000 from Victoria University in Australia. From 2000 to 2003, Dr. Ke conducted his Postdoctoral research in biochemistry and biophysics at Indiana University, Purdue University and the University of California at San Diego. From 2003 Dr. Ke has been a faculty member of Clemson University.

Dr. Kothandam Krishnamoorthy is a Research Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay, India, a M. Phil in Polymer Science from Alagappa University-Karaikudi, India, and a M.Sc and B.Sc in Chemistry from Madurai Kamaraj University, India. Prior to his current position, he worked as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Georgia State University- Atlanta , and as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He has applied for a patent with co-workers for “Functionalizing Nanoporous Membranes for Protein Separation.”

Dr. Jennifer Kuzma is associate professor and area chair of Science, Technology and Environmental Policy at the Humphrey Institute.  Prior this position, she served as study director for several U.S. National Academy of Sciences reports related to agricultural biotechnology and bioterrorism and as an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Risk Policy Fellow at the U.S. Department of Agriculture where she worked on risk analysis for foodborne pathogens such as E. coli 0157:H7 and BSE.  Her current research focuses on oversight policy, risk analysis and regulatory review for bio- and nanotechnology.  She is co-PI on two U.S. National Science Foundation-funded grants studying oversight models and risk communication for nanotechnology.  She has published widely and spoken nationally and internationally in the areas of basic science, public policy, and risk analysis.  At the U of MN, she teaches courses in risk analysis, risk policy, and science and technology policy. She was awarded Humphrey Teacher of the Year in 2004.  She received her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Colorado. 

Dr. Warren Layne has a B.S. in Chemistry from Boston University, an M.S. in Inorganic Analytical Chemistry from University of Massachusetts, and a Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry from Northeastern University in Boston. He also has Postdoctoral training at the Harvard School of Public Health in Nuclear Medicine. He has additional years of industrial experience in radiopharmaceutical research as an assistant professor at the University of Connecticut Medical Center in Farmington, University of Texas at Galveston, and Baylor University School of Medicine in Houston Texas. Dr. Layne has spent over 17 years working for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency including 12 years as Toxic Release Inventory Coordinator in Dallas, Texas (Region 6) in the Pollution Prevention and Toxics Division and five years as a quality assurance plan reviewer, regional sample coordinator, and nanotechnology contact in Chicago, Illinois (Region 5) in the Superfund Division. Dr. Layne has a patent and multiple publications in scientific journals. He was a coauthor of Nanotechnology White Paper (2007), participated in EPA-sponsored national nanotechnology conferences. He was the cochairman of the 2006 region 5 Workshop on Nanotechnology Site Remediation and also the current cochairman for the International Environmental Nanotechnology Conference: Applications and Implications, Chicago, October 7-9, 2008.

Robert Lee is a Co-Director for the ESRC Research Centre on Business Relationships, Accountability, Sustainability and Society (BRASS). He is an environmental lawyer by profession and an acknowledged expert on the regulation of nanotechnology at the EU and UK levels. He has also advised the UK government on the development and marketing of nanomaterials. Lee is the Editor of Environmental Law Monthly, Series Editor for the International Library of Environmental Law & Policy, the Environmental Editor for the Journal of Business Law and Current Developments Editor for the Journal of Environmental Law. He is also a trustee of the Environmental Law Foundation.

Dr. Daohui Lin received his B.S. in the Department of Geography at Hangzhou University in 1995. He received his M.S. at the Institute of Environmental Science, Beijing Normal University in 1998 and his Ph.D. at the Department of Environmental Science, Zhejiang University in 2005. Dr. Lin currently works at the Department of Environmental Science, Zhejiang University as an Associate Professor. His main research is in environmental chemistry and focuses on the environmental behavior and ecological effects in recent years.

Sam Lipson serves as the Director of Environmental Health for the Cambridge Public Health Department. Mr. Lipson received his undergraduate degree from University of California at Berkeley and completed his Masters work in Toxicology. In this capacity he oversees the enforcement of the Cambridge Recombinant DNA Technology Ordinance since 1997. This local statute codifies the NIH Guidelines for Research Involving Recombinant DNA Molecules within the City of Cambridge, MA.  His responsibilities include administrating the Cambridge Biosafety Committee and performing required laboratory inspections. Mr. Lipson has also worked closely with the biotech community to conduct biosafety trainings in 2002 and 2008. In 2007 Mr. Lipson led a policy process as ordered by the Cambridge City Council to determine local policy relating to research, processing and manufacturing of engineered nanomaterials. In developing the network and knowledge-base to address these questions Mr. Lipson co-organized an all-day forum on nanomaterials and public health at MIT in May 2007. He has also spoken on this topic at forums organized by the Center for High-Rate Manufacturing at Northeastern University and spoke at the University of California at Santa Barbara during the Center for Nanotechnology and Society conference in November 2007.

Dr. John Marino graduated from Princeton University in Chemistry in 1989 and completed a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Yale University under the supervision of Prof. Donald M. Crothers in 1995.  He was an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Christian Griesinger at the J. W.-Goethe Universität in Frankfurt, Germany from 1995 through 1997.  From 1997 to 2001, he held the positions of Research Chemist (term appointment) at NIST and Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute (UMBI) at the Center for Advanced Research in Biotechnology (CARB) in Rockville, Maryland.  In 2001, he was promoted to Research Chemist (Career Appointment) at NIST and Adjunct Associate Professor (tenured equivalent) at the UMBI. In 2008, he became Group Leader of the Macromolecular Structure Function Group at NIST and Associate Director of CARB. Dr. Marino’s research interests are focused in three principle areas: RNA interactions involved in gene regulation and retroviral replication, G-Protein Coupled Receptor signaling and Carbon Nanotube applications and characterization.  To advance our studies, we develop new chemical, NMR and fluorescence methods to facilitated characterization of structure, dynamics and binding kinetics. 

Hamid Mashayekhi is currently a graduate student in the Department of Plant, Soil & Insect Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst working toward his Ph.D. degree. His research work is focused on the fate and interactions of manufactured nanoparticles in the environment.

Meagan Mauter is a Ph.D. candidate interested in the environmental applications and implications of emerging technologies.  Her dissertation will focus on carbon nanotubes, including research towards high-flux desalination membranes incorporating carbon nanotubes and assessment of the bacterial cytotoxicity of carbon nanotubes in aquatic systems.

Kevin Metz received a BS with honors in Chemistry from Alma College in 2001. He earned a Ph.D. in Materials Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 2007. His doctoral thesis examined the fabrication and characterization of nanoscale metal-carbon hybrid materials for energy conversion and storage applications. He carried out postdoctoral studies with Joel Pedersen (UW-Madison) on the development of assays to examine the stability of engineered nanomaterials in various simulated environments. Since 2008 he has been at Albion College, where he is an assistant professor of chemistry. He is currently investigating applications of nanomaterials in the environment.

Jeff Morris is EPA’s National Program Director for Nanotechnology, and is responsible for managing EPA’s Nanomaterials Research Program. Jeff leads the US delegation to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development’s Working Party on Manufactured Nanomaterials, and co-chairs the Working Party’s test guidelines steering group. Jeff also co-chaired EPA’s Nanotechnology Coordinating Committee, which issued EPA’s Nanotechnology White Paper in February 2007. Prior to becoming National Program Director for Nanotechnology, Jeff served as acting director of EPA’s Office of Science Policy. Jeff’s academic training is in economics and environmental policy, and all of the several positions Jeff has held during his 17 years at EPA have focused on either regulatory issues or science policy.

Bryant Nelson is a Staff Research Chemist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Chemical Science and Technology Laboratory, Biochemical Science Division in Gaithersburg, MD. Bryant obtained his bachelor's degree in Chemistry in 1990 from the University of Texas at Austin. He earned his master's degree in 1994 and his doctoral degree in 1996, both in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. After a National Research Council post-doctoral fellowship at NIST (1996 - 1997) and a research scientist position at Pfizer Central Research (1997 - 1999), he became a staff research chemist at NIST in the Analytical Chemistry Division. Recently, Bryant moved his research program in clinical mass spectrometry from the Analytical Chemistry Division to the Biochemical Science Division. He is currently the leader of a mass spectrometry-based targeted metabolomics program focused on characterizing the cytotoxic and genotoxic (DNA damage and repair) behavior of engineered nanomaterials. He is a member of the American Chemical Society and Sigma Xi and has published approximately 35 papers and presented 29 talks.

Bernd Nowack is the leader of the "Materials, Products and the Environment" group at Empa, the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research and lecturer in environmental chemistry at ETH Zurich. His general research interest is to study the interactions between organic and inorganic compounds in the environment with the purpose to understand their behavior in natural and technical systems. His research bridges between the development of analytical techniques, laboratory investigations, field studies, and modeling. In his current work he studies the risks of synthetic nanomaterials. His group carries out research on qualitative risk assessment, quantitative modeling, and release of nanomaterials from products. They also study the behavior and effects of nanoparticles in the environment and consider socio-economic aspects, e.g. on risk communication and risk governance. He is Associate Editor for the journal Environmental Pollution. He has published 60 peer-reviewed papers and has edited the book “Biogeochemistry of chelating agents.”

Leila Nyberg is a doctoral student in Civil/Environmental Engineering, and in the Ecological Sciences and Engineering Interdisciplinary Graduate Program at Purdue University. She completed her Master of Science degree in the same program in May 2008. The title of her thesis is “Assessing the Impact of Nanomaterials on Anaerobic Microbial Communities”. She completed her Bachelor of Science in Biology at Kansas State University in 2001. She serves as laboratory instructor for CE 352: Biological Principles of Environmental Engineering. She received the Nellie Munson Teaching Assistant Award in 2008 and a Graduate Student Award for Outstanding Teaching in 2009. She is also a 2009 recipient of the Frederick N. Andrews Environmental Travel Grant. In summer 2005, she mentored an award-winning undergraduate student in the Purdue SURF program and is currently mentoring three undergraduate students who are examining environmental impacts of nanomaterials in biological systems. 

Marti Otto is an environmental engineer in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Technology Innovation and Field Services Division.  Ms. Otto has over 23 years of experience in hazardous waste site evaluation and remediation and in environmental regulation and policy development.  She has been following the development of environmental applications of nanotechnology for about five years. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology and a Master of Science degree in Environmental Science and Engineering from Virginia Tech.

Dr. Bo Pan received his Ph.D. at the Beijing University in 2006. He then worked at UMass Amherst as a Postdoctoral research fellow. Currently, he is working at Kunming University of Science & Technology as a professor in environmental soil chemistry.

Dr.June Woo Park is a post-doctoral research associate in the Center for Environmental Biotechnology of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Dr. Park holds a Ph.D. in environmental toxicology from Michigan State University in 2008 and has over 5 years experience in endocrine disruption and analytical toxicology. He has broad experience in aquatic toxicology and molecular toxicology including biochemical and chemical analytical techniques, immunoassay, histopathology, RT-PCR, blotting, and in situ hybridization. His appointment at CEB involves development of an effect of fullerene (C60) on bioavailability of other toxicants and evaluation of toxicities caused by dietary exposure of different types of nanoparticles in zebrafish.

Dr. Elijah Petersen is a Postdoctoral research scientist in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Michigan under the guidance of Dr. Walter J. Weber Jr.  Dr. Petersen gained a B.A. with honors in Psychology and a B.S. and M.S. degrees in civil engineering at Case Western Reserve University in 2003.  He graduated with a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering in 2007 studying the ecological effects of carbon nanotubes in environmental systems.  He then went to Finland on a Fulbright Scholarship to conduct Postdoctoral research in the Faculty of Biosciences at the University of Joensuu under Dr. Jussi Kukkonen. Dr. Petersen’s research interests include the potential environmental risks of nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes, quantum dots, and gold nanoparticles.  His awards include a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, Fulbright Scholarship (Finland), American Chemical Society Environmental Division Graduate Student Paper Award, American Chemical Society Environmental Division Graduate Student Award, 2003 All-USA College Academic First Team (USA Today), and a Goldwater Scholarship.

Dr. Tanapon Phenrat is currently working as a full time Postdoctoral researcher with Associate Professor Lowry (Carnegie Mellon University) and Professor Tissa Illangasekare (Colorado School of Mines). They are working on developing an approach to control the placement of polymeric-modified NZVI in the heterogeneous subsurface for an effective in situ environmental remediation.

Dr. Ganesh Rajagopalan is a Project Manager in the Advanced Technologies Group of Kennedy/Jenks Consultants.  He has over 15 years of experience in water quality research and treatment.  He is the principal investigator for the WateReuse Foundation project to evaluate the impacts of nanomaterials in wastewater treatment processes. Also, he was the Chair of the recently published WEF Technical Practice Update on “Nanomaterials and Wastewater”. Dr. Rajagopalan received his B.S in Civil Engineering from India; M.S. & Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from Virginia Tech; and the University of Tennessee, respectively.

Dr. Krishna Reddy is a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Director of the Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Dr. Reddy is a professional engineer and worked as civil engineer and project manager in consulting engineering companies for several years prior to joining the UIC faculty. Dr. Reddy's consulting and research expertise includes remediation of contaminated sites, waste containment systems, and waste material characterization and reuse. Dr. Reddy has published over 150 technical papers on various topics in geoenvironmental engineering. He is also the author of the book "Geoenvironmental Engineering: Site Remediation, Waste Containment, and Emerging Waste Management Technologies" published by John Wiley. Dr. Reddy is the Editor of Land Contamination & Reclamation journal, and he serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Soil and Sediment Contamination, Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, and Journal of Hazardous Materials. He has received several awards and honors for excellence in teaching, research, and professional service, including the prestigious University of Illinois Scholar Award.

Dr. Todd H. Rees, P.E., has over twenty years of research and consulting experience in hydrological and biogeochemical assessments.  His work includes groundwater, surface water, soil, sediment and vapor phase investigations, feasibility analyses for treatment technology selection, technology costing and design and implementation of environmental restoration projects.  Dr. Rees leads a number of projects in designed in-situ restoration, implementing remedial elements such as bioreactors, chemical reagents, nano-technology and engineered accelerated bioremediation.

Dr. David Rickerby is a Senior Scientific Officer in the Institute for Environment and Sustainability at the European Commission Joint Research Centre. After obtaining his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge he carried out Postdoctoral research at the Materials Research Laboratory of The Pennsylvania State University. His scientific interests include the application of nanostructured materials and development of sensors for environmental monitoring. He has participated in technology roadmapping studies, foresight analysis studies and the evaluation of emerging risks and benefits of nanotechnologies in various EU projects. At present he is a member of the Task Force on Environment and Health, developing new research strategies to help reduce the disease burden caused by environmental factors, to identify and to prevent new environmental health threats, and to strengthen the capacity for EU policy making in this area.

Dr. Vincent Rotello is the Charles A. Goessmann Professor of Chemistry, Department of Chemistry and Program in Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He received his B.S. from Illinois Institute of Technology in 1985. He obtained his Ph.D. in 1990 from Yale University with Harry Wasserman in the area of natural products synthesis. From 1990-93, he was an NSF postdoctoral fellow with Julius Rebek Jr. at M.I.T. in the area of host-guest chemistry. Since 1993, Professor Rotello has been at the University of Massachusetts Amherst as an Assistant Professor from 1993-1998, Associate Professor (1998-2001), Professor (2001-2005) and Charles A Goessmann Professor of Chemistry (2005 to present), with an appointment in the Program in Molecular and Cellular Biology. He has been the recipient of the NSF CAREER, and Cottrell Scholar award, as well as the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar, and the Sloan Fellowships, and is a Fellow of the RSC. He is currently an Associate Editor for the Journal of Materials Chemistry, and is on the Editorial Board of seven other journals. His research program spans the areas of devices, polymers, nanotechnology, and bionanotechnology, with over 290 papers published to date.

Dr. Emppu Salonen heads the Computational Soft Matter Research Group at the Department of Applied Physics at Helsinki University of Technology (TKK), Finland. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in Physics at University of Helsinki in 2002. In 2003 he joined the Biological and Soft Matter Group of Dr. Ilpo Vattulainen at TKK and as of January 2008 he has led his own research group at the same university. He currently has the five-year Research Fellow position of the Academy of Finland (2006-2011). The research of the group currently focuses on the environmental and biological effects of nanomaterials, interaction of small biologically active solutes with cell membranes, and electrokinetic manipulation of nano- and bioparticles in microelectrode systems.

Dr. Annette Santamaria is a Senior Manager in the Health Sciences Practice of ENVIRON International Corporation and is located in Houston, Texas.  She is a board-certified toxicologist and has extensive experience evaluating the health risks associated with exposure to a variety of consumer products, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, food additives, personal care products, and industrial chemicals.  Dr. Santamaria has become well versed in the rapidly evolving field of toxicology and human health effects potentially associated with fine particulate matter, as well as the products of nanotechnology.  She has participated and presented in several meetings addressing toxicological and risk assessment issues regarding nanomaterials and she recently developed the Specialty Section called “Nanotoxicology” for the Society of Toxicology and is serving as the Interim President of the Specialty Section.

Paul C. Sarahan serves as counsel to Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P. His responsibilities focus on environmental consulting and advising clients on business transactions, enforcement, auditing, environmental litigation, permitting, nanotechnology and workplace safety issues. In addition, Mr. Sarahn has the experience to advise legislative activities. Prior to joining Fulbright, Mr. Sarahan was the Director of the Litigation Division of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality ("TCEQ”), where he litigated complex environmental cases involving enforcement and permitting issues. He advised TCEQ's Environmental Audit program.  While at the TCEQ, he was rated one of the top in-house counsel by the Texas Lawyer. Since joining Fulbright, Mr. Sarahan has assisted several clients in developing and implementing environmental audit programs, and has advised clients on Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requirements, addressing material data safety sheets, hazard communication, process safety management, process hazard analysis, and facility citing issues. Mr. Sarahn graduated with Honors from the University of Texas School of Law and earned an LL.M. in Environmental, Energy and Natural Resources Law from the University of Houston Law School. He is the author of “Nanotechnology Safety: A Framework for Identifying and Complying with Workplace Safety Requirements," Nanotechnology Law & Business, Issue 5.2, July 2008. 

Love Sarin received his B.Tech. in Chemical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology –Bombay, India in 2004. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate under the supervision of Prof. Robert Hurt at Brown University where he also received his M.S. degree in 2005. His current research focuses on synthesis of nanomaterials for biological and environmental applications, with an emphasis on selenium nanomaterials as implant coatings, chemotherapeutic agents, and environmental mercury sorbents.

Dr. Christie M. Sayes is currently a tenure-track Assistant Professor at Texas A&M University where she is PI of the Nanomaterials & Nanotoxicology Research Laboratory. Recently, she completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the DuPont Global Centers - Haskell Laboratory for Health and Environmental Sciences. She is actively studying the health effects of various nanomaterials in vitro and in vivo systems. She has made significant correlations between physicochemical properties and toxicological profiles, which in turn have help to shape the landscape of nanotoxicology & nanomedicine. In addition, her work advances nanotechnology by conducting application and implication research, simultaneously.

Christie has a Ph.D. in Chemistry, specializing in nanoscience, from Rice University. While studying at Rice, she pioneered many cytotoxicity studies, including biocompatibility investigations with carbon, metal, and oxide nanomaterials to various in vitro systems. Dr. Sayes has a BS in Chemistry from Louisiana State University, magna cum laude.

She has authored almost 40 research publications, reviews, patents, and book chapters. She has ongoing collaborations with academic, industry, and government. Christie has received awards including the Welch Fellowship Supplemental Award, the Harry B. Weiser Graduate Student Award for Research, the Houston Livestock and Rodeo Endowed Scholarship, the International Toxicology of Nanomaterials Young Investigator Award, and the Society of Toxicology - Inhalation Specialty Section - Postdoctoral Award. She represents Texas A&M in the 2009 Searle Scholars Program and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Program.

Christie is on the Executive Committee of Texas A&M Toxicology Program. She is a member of Society of Toxicology, Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry, and American Chemical Society.

Kathleen Sellers, P.E., is an Environmental Engineer with the Lowell, MA office of ARCADIS, U.S., Inc.  Ms. Sellers divides her practice between resolving environmental problems resulting from historical industrial practices, and exploring emerging environmental issues and their solutions. Ms. Sellers and her co-author, Lynn L. Bergeson, Esquire of Bergeson & Campbell, PC, Washington, D.C., recently edited and co-authored the book “Nanotechnology and the Environment” (CRC Press, 2008), and assist clients with evaluating life-cycle and related issues associated with the production and use of  nanomaterials.

Dr. Najm Shamim has been with the EPA for ten years and has conducted environmental fate and transport risk assessments on many antimicrobials, including anitfoulants and wood preservatives. His prior experiences include: development and populating NIST/EPA/NIH mass spectral databases as well as NIST/EPA ft-ir databases.

Dr. Jo Anne Shatkin is a Managing Director for CLF Ventures, a non-profit, environmental advocacy organization affiliated with the Conservation Law Foundation in New England. She received her Ph.D. in Environmental Health Science and Policy in 1994 and her M.A. in Risk Management and Technology Assessment, both from Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts. She received her B.S. from Worcester Polytechnic University in molecular biology. Dr. Shatkin is a recognized expert in strategic environmental initiatives, health risk assessment, technical communications, and environmental aspects of nanotechnology. She leads and provides expertise on projects and manages the day to day operations of CLF Ventures. Her work focuses on providing innovative approaches for evaluating new and emerging contaminants in the environment, particularly on assessments of chemical and microbial concerns that inform policy development. She recently developed NANO LCRA, an adaptive life cycle framework for identifying and managing the risks of nanomaterials. She has described this framework in her book, Nanotechnology Health and Environmental Risks, published in 2008 via CRC Press. Dr. Shatkin founded the Emerging Nanoscale Materials Specialty Group of the Society for Risk Analysis, with 130 international members from 22 countries.

Liesje Sintubin graduated in 2007, with distinction from Ghent University – Belgium as a Pharmacist. That same year, she returned to work on her Ph.D. in the Laboratory of Microbial Ecology and Technology (LabMET – Faculty of Bioscience Engineering). In December 2007, she obtained an IWT scholarship (Innovation by Science and Technology) and has been working ever since on the biological production of silver nanoparticles and their application.

Billy Smith graduated from Villa Julie (now Stevenson University), Baltimore, MD in 2005. He is currently working as a graduate student on a project with collaboration between Professor's Bill Ball and Howard Fairbrother.

Mark Smith graduated from Colorado State University with a Bachelor’s degree in Microbiology in the spring of 2006.  After graduating, he continued working for the university’s Arthropod-borne and Infectious Diseases Laboratory as a research associate to develop and maintain transgenic mosquito lines for the purpose of Dengue Virus research.  In the spring of 2008, Mark left Colorado to pursue a Master’s degree in Food Science at Oregon State University, where he is currently characterizing functionalized gold nano-particle toxicity in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Robert Sullivan Prior to joining the Department as a Scientist and now a member of Office of Legal Counsel as an attorney, Robert Sullivan practiced law in the environmental field. Robert has been a member of the State Bar of California since 1992, was a member and past president of the Santa Clara County Bar Association Environmental Law Executive Committee and a member of the Santa Clara County Bar Association (1992-2007). Robert is a Registered Patent Attorney with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (2001) and a former Registered Environmental Assessor (1995-2007) with DTSC. Robert served as a judge pro tem with the Santa Clara Superior Court (2005-2006) and volunteered with the Santa Clara Pro Bono Clinic part time (2003-2006). Robert’s undergraduate degree is in Professional Chemistry and he worked in process engineering in the semiconductor for fifteen years before becoming an attorney.

Dr. Su-Jung (Candace) Tsai is a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Work Environment at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. She received both her BS and MS in chemical engineering in Taiwan, and worked for five years as a plant and process engineer at a petrochemical plant in Taiwan. At UMass Lowell she received her MS in management science (manufacturing) and her Doctor of Science in Occupational Hygiene and Cleaner Production.

Dr. Tsai performed her doctoral research as part of the NSF-funded Center for High-rate Manufacturing (CHN), where she did ground-breaking research to evaluate and control occupational exposures to engineered nanoparticles. Her publications presenting the results of her research into the performance of laboratory fume hoods when handling nanopowders and the twin screw extrusion of nanocomposites are the first such papers in the peer-reviewed literature. As a post-doc, she is working with CHN and TURI, where she continues to her research into nanoparticle exposure assessment and control technology. She and Dr. Michael Ellenbecker are writing a new textbook for Wiley titled “Health and Safety Considerations for Working with Engineered Nanoparticles in Industry.” In addition, she is leading UMass Lowell’s efforts to establish cooperative educational and research efforts with colleagues in Taiwan.

Dr. Chad Vecitis received his undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins University in 2001 where he began his research career with Prof. Howard Fairbrother. He is currently a Yale Institute of Biospheric Sciences (YIBS) Postdoctoral Fellow working with Professor Menachem Elimelech. Dr. Vecitis is investigating the environmental chemistry of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs). His research will focus on studying the SWNT anti-microbial mechanism, as well as engineering SWNT-based structures for water treatment.  Dr. Vecitis will receive his doctorate from the California Institute of Technology under the advice of Professor Michael R. Hoffmann in Environmental Physical Chemistry Department. Dr. Vecitis Ph.D. research focused on the remediation of aqueous perfluorochemicals.  At California Institute of Technology, he also worked on projects involving the solar-powered electrochemical production of hydrogen via water-splitting and atmospherically relevant chemistry at the air-water interface.  

Elsa Vitorge entered the Ecole Nationale des Mines de Saint Etienne, a French national Graduate Engineering School in 2004. She graduated in 2007 with a major in Environmental Science. During her education, she participated in an exchange program at the Université de Québec à Montréal, Canada where she received her M.S. in Environmental Science. She is currently a Ph.D. student in the Laboratoire d’Etudes des Transferts en Hydrologie et Environnement, at Grenoble University, France. She is granted by the CNRS and the French Nuclear agency (CEA) to study the transport of colloids in saturated porous media (modeling and experimental aspects). She uses silica nanoparticles as tracers of natural colloids. Her research interests include (1) fate and transport of nano-colloids in groundwater; (2) characterization of colloid surface properties in link with their ability to be transported.

Dr. Huanhua Wang is currently a Postdoctoral student in the Department of Plant, Soil and Insect Sciences at the University of Massachusetts – Amherst. In 2007, she received her Ph.D. from the State Key Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in China.

Jean Warshaw graduated from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law in 1980 and obtained her A.B. from Bryn Mawr College in 1977, with honors in Chemistry. She is an environmental lawyer in private practice in New York City where she has over 25 years of experience and counsels extensively on the Toxic Substances Control Act. She has been active in the New York City Bar where she produced a series of podcasts on environmental. Ms Warshaw is accredited by the New York State Continuing Legal Education Board to present a program on the regulation of nanotechnology entitled “Nanotechnology:  Safe until proven harmful or harmful until proven safe?” She and Miriam Vogel Gold are writing a book on the Toxic Substances Control Act expected to be published in March 2009 by Oxford University Press.

Sharon Weber is a Senior Technical Advisor in the Commissioner’s Office at the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. She has been employed at MassDEP for over a decade, is a member of MassDEP’s Emerging Contaminant Workgroup and Massachusetts Interagency Nanotechnology Committee. She has also worked on power plant emissions monitoring for cap and trade programs, the low emissions vehicle program, and air emissions regulations for older power plants. She has a B.S. in Materials Science & Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an M.S. from Tufts University in Urban & Environmental Policy and Civil & Environmental Engineering.

Kevin Wepasnick received his B.A. in Chemistry from Franklin & Marshall College in 2006.  Kevin is currently working as a graduate student for Professor Howard Fairbrother in the Chemistry Department at Johns Hopkins University.

Carol Rowan West received her M.S.in Public Health, specializing in environmental health, and her B.S. in Microbiology from the University of Massachusetts – Amherst. She is the Director of the Office of Research and Standards at the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP).  Ms. West is responsible for directing and managing the Department’s research program on toxic chemicals, providing information on the adverse health effects of environmental contaminants, recommending standards to protect public health, establishing risk assessment methodologies; overseeing site specific risk assessments, and supervising MassDEP’s Senator William Wall Experiment Station. She also participates in policy and program development at MA DEP. She is also the Chair of MassDEP’s Emerging Contaminant Workgroup and the Interagency Nanotechnology Committee.

Paige Wiecinski is currently a Ph.D. student in the Molecular and Environmental Toxicology Center at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

Dr. Mark R. Wiesner serves as Director of the Center for the Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology (CEINT) headquartered at Duke, where he holds the James L. Meriam Chair in Civil and Environmental Engineering with appointments in the Pratt School of Engineering and the Nicholas School of Environment. Dr. Wiesner’s recent research has focused on the applications of emerging nanomaterials to membrane science and water treatment and an examination of the fate, transport, and impacts of nanomaterials in the environment. He co-edited/authored the book “Environmental Nanotechnologies.” Before joining the Duke University faculty in 2006, Professor Wiesner was a member of the Rice University faculty for 18 years where he held appointments in the Departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Chemical Engineering and served as Associate Dean of Engineering, and Director of the Environmental and Energy Systems Institute. Prior to working in academia, Dr. Wiesner was a Research Engineer with the French company the Lyonnaise des Eaux, in Le Pecq, France, and a Principal Engineer with the Environmental Engineering Consulting firm of Malcolm Pirnie, Inc., White Plains, NY. Wiesner received the1995 Rudolf Hering medal from the American Society of Civil Engineers and the 2004 Frontiers in Research Award from the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors. In 2004 Dr. Wiesner was also named a “de Fermat Laureate” and was awarded an International Chair of Excellence at the Chemical Engineering Lab of the French Polytechnic Institute and National Institute for Applied Sciences in Toulouse, France.

Dr. Nianqiang (Nick) Wu received his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering. He is currently Assistant Professor of Materials Science at West Virginia Nano Initiative and the Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering in West Virginia University (Morgantown, WV, USA). His research interests lie in nanomaterials and nanostructures, photocatalysts and photoelectrochemica devices, chemical sensors and biosensors.

Dr. Zhong Xiong is a staff engineer with AMEC Geomatrix, Inc. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Environmental Engineering from Chongqing University in China; he received his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Auburn University. His research interests and work experiences are in the areas of environmental remediation, especially the development and application of innovative nanoscale materials for remediation and site clean-up.

Dr. Xiaoqi Zhang is an Associate Professor of Environmental Engineering in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at the University of Massachusetts – Lowell. She has been working in the area of biological wastewater treatment for over 15 years. Her recent research projects include evaluating the impacts of nanoparticles on wastewater and biologically induced chemical phosphorus removal. 

Dr. Zhouying Zhao received a M.S. degree in Semiconductor Physics & Devices from Nanjing University, China in 1989. Then she became a materials scientist in the Division of Semiconductor Materials Research & Development at Nanjing Solid State Devices Institute, focusing on the development of II-VI and III-V semiconductor heterojunction epitaxial materials for application in advanced microwave, microelectronic and optoelectronic devices & systems (1989-1997). She received a Ph.D. degree in Materials Science & Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology, America in 2001. Dr. Zhao was a postdoctoral associate with Professor Michael Carpenter (2002-2005) at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering working on nanocrystal based sensing materials development for chemical gas sensor applications, and is currently a research scientist within the college.

Zheng-Jiang Zhu received his B.S. in Chemistry at Nanjing University, China in 2006. Currently, he is a graduate student in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Massachusetts – Amherst under the supervision of Professor Richard W. Vachet and Professor Vincent M. Rotello. His research focuses on analysis of functionalized gold nanoparticles with mass spectrometry and applications in biological and environmental systems.