Author: wlxnder2@memphis.edu

Chemical Disaster Response

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Method development for rapid and accurate physicochemical property estimates When responding to a chemical spill/release incident, first responders need accurate information about the spilled substance’s environmental fate and transport properties and toxicity, among other information. When this information is not available, computational methods can be employed to rapidly provide high-level estimates of fundamental physical/chemical properties of these substances. These property…

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‘Pub News’ – Mar. 2015

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In collaboration with researchers at Virginia Tech, Dr. Alexander, Dr. DeYonker, and UofM undergraduate Katherine Charbonnet have published a paper in Environmental Science and Technology Letters entitled “Partitioning, Aqueous Solubility, and Dipole Moment Data for cis– and trans-(4-Methylcyclohexyl)methanol, Principal Contaminants of the West Virginia Chemical Spill”. This is the first of many papers that will come out of our NSF-funded work in response to the Elk River chemical spill in Jan. 2014. The paper can be accessed here.

 

‘Funding News’ – Jan. 2015

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The National Science Foundation has awarded funds to sponsor a workshop entitled “Fostering Advances in Water Resource Protection and Crisis Communications, Lessons Learned from Recent Disasters” that will focus on research outcomes from work on the Elk River (Jan. 2014) and Dan River (Feb. 2014) spills. Dr. Jennifer Weidhaas (PI, WVU) and and Dr. Alexander (co-PI) are organizing the workshop to be held at the end of May 2015. Information about the workshop, and a compendium of research resources related to these disasters can be found at our Water Workshop site.

 

‘Funding News’ – Dec. 2014

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Dr. Alexander was awarded a grant for a project entitled “Electric-field induced morphology of covalently-bound peptide surfaces: Toward switchable biological interfaces” from the TN-SCORE Seed Program in Collaborative Quantitative Biology. Dr. Firouzeh Sabri (UM Physics) and Dr. Tessa Calhoun (Department of Chemistry, UT Knoxville) are Co-PIs on the grant.

 

Oct. 2014

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  • Kate Charbonnet won third prize at the 2014 ACS Undergraduate Symposium Poster Competition at Rhodes College. Kate presented her work studying conformations of compounds related to the Jan. 2014 Elk River chemical spill. Congrats, Kate!
  • Dr. Alexander presented a talk “The Elk River chemical spill and beyond: Progress in developing quick and accurate computational models for on-demand physicochemical properties of emerging environmental contaminants” at the 2014 Southeastern Regional Meeting of the ACS in Nashville.
  • Katherine Charbonnet also presented a poster “Theoretical exploration of isomerization energies and conformational space of Elk River spill contaminants”  at the ACS meeting in Nashville.

Sept. 2014

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Sophomore Nate van Kampen has joined the research group as a MemphisSTEM Undergradaute Research Fellow. Nate will be working on designing and characterizing biomaterials coatings to tune the interfacial properties of “smart” implants. Welcome to the group!

Status
wlxnder2@memphis.edu

A “status update” for former group members:

Clay Scruggs is starting Graduate School at Virginia Tech this fall.

Matt Luckey has started a job with Valero.

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