The Superfund Research Center

Back in April, I was awarded the SRP Trainee Externship Award through OSU’s SRP Training Core to help support my training opportunity at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) as an Alternate Sponsored Fellow. The aim of this internship was to predict the formation of hydroxy- and oxygenated‑PAHs (OHPAHs and OPAHs, respectively) in the environment using a computational chemistry approach. OPAHs and OHPAHs can be formed from the degradation of PAHs. OPAHs in air samples have been found to be more mutagenic than the unsubstituted PAHs.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Air pollution controls installed at an Oregon coal-fired power plant to curb mercury emissions are unexpectedly reducing another class of harmful emissions as well, an Oregon State University study has found.

Portland General Electric added emission control systems at its generating plant in Boardman, Oregon, in 2011 to capture and remove mercury from the exhaust.

Chemistry graduate student Ivan Titaley has been immersed in polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) research within SRP Project 5 – Formation of Hazardous PAH Breakdown Products in Complex Environmental Mixtures at Superfund Sites under Dr. Staci Simonich.

Ivan Titaley

Recently, Ivan was selected by Dr. Dayle Smith as a sponsored fellow at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) to get hands-on training in modeling of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. This program is through the Office of Science and Engineering Education (SEE) at PNNL. The selection is commendable, and will allow Ivan to apply new modeling techniquesl in his own research on OPAHs and OHPAHs transformation processes.

To financially support Ivan on this unique training opportunity, he has been awarded an SRP Trainee Externship Award through the SRP Training Core. This activity provides important synergy between Project 5 and Core C – Biostatistics and Modeling.

Dr. Smith will provide mentoring for Ivan to perform computational chemistry work to predict the formation of oxygenated-PAHs (OPAHs) and hydroxy-PAHs (OHPAHs) from higher molecular weight parent PAHs. More specifically, Ivan will be working using the NWChem 6.5 computational chemistry software. Using thermodynamic data on potential OH-PAH-adduct, he will be able to show which compounds will form based on thermodynamic stability.

Congratulations, Ivan!

Dr. David Williams was recently awarded the PANWAT Achievement Award at the 2014 Pacific Northwest Association of Toxicologist Meeting in Bothell, Washington on September 19.

Dr. Williams joined the faculty of the College of Agricultural Sciences in 1987 as an Assistant Professor, originally in Food Science and Technology, then transferring to the Department of environmental and Molecular Toxicology.