Notes from Dept Head 📝
Friend,
As we continue to isolate and socially distant, it is exciting to plan for a time in the not-too-distant future when we can return to classrooms, laboratories, and field sites to re-engage—side-by-side—with the people and science we value so highly.
Here is a (not exhaustive) list of research projects on the front burner for some ENVS folks:
• Renewal of UA’s Superfund Research Program focused on the environmental fate and toxicology of arsenic derived from mining environments
• Studies into the survival of coronavirus on surfaces and in wastewater
• Degradation of organic contaminants by redox-active minerals
• Role of organic matter composition in stimulating recovery of degraded arid landscapes
Our faculty and staff are also collaborating on an instructional project: the establishment of a new UA Global Microcampus for the ENVS B.S. major at Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University in Yangling, China. The first student cohort will join in September 2020, taught by three new ENVS professors based in Yangling.
This project represents a global reach of our undergraduate curriculum, and is testament to the demand worldwide for our unique pedagogical approach to environmental science.