Environmental health sciences Ph.D. student Mithun Sikder awarded George M. Reeves Graduate Fellowship

Each year, the Graduate School awards five different Trustee Fellowships to full-time graduate students who exhibit excellence in graduate study, research and scholarship. Mithun Sikder, a May doctoral graduate in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences (ENHS), was selected to receive the George M. Reeves Graduate Fellowship, which is named for Reeves, who formerly served as UofSC’s director for the Lilly Teaching Fellows Program, senior assistant to the President and Dean of the Graduate School.

CENR and ENHS researcher Mohammed Baalousha studies nanoparticles released into environment by sewage spills

Sewage spills are a major source of releasing titanium dioxide engineered nanoparticles into the environment, according to recent research conducted at the South Carolina SmartState Center for Environmental Nanoscience and Risk(CENR). The study was led by Mohammed Baalousha, an associate professor of environmental nanoscience in the Arnold School of Public Health’s department of environmental health sciences, and published in Environmental Science: Nano—as a cover article, demonstrating the study’s significance to the field as determined by the journal’s editors and reviewers.   

Farmer Scientists: Five Trials in Managing for Soil Health

Working with Dr. Robin “Buz” Kloot, Research Associate Professor at the University of South Carolina Arnold School of Public Health, each farmer seeks to quantify the potential benefits of conservation practices like no-till adoption and planting diverse cover crops.

ENHS and CENR’s Christopher Toumey publishes book on nanotechnology and the humanities

Christopher Toumey, a research associate professor in the department of environmental health sciences (ENHS) and the South Carolina SmartState Center for Environmental Nanoscience and Risk (CENR), has published a book with Cambridge Scholars Publishing. The book, Nanotech and the Humanities: An Anthropologist Observes the Science of Atoms and Molecules, is a collection of 29 papers Toumey has published on the subject.

Five Arnold School researchers named in Clarivate Analytics’ Highly Cited Researchers List

Lead’s focus on environmental nanoscience has resulted in 100 peer-reviewed articles since 2012, along with several patents and books. Between 2014 and 2016, he appointed a team of five faculty members, whose work is independent and collaborative, both within CENR and USC and with external partners. Foci include soil, sediment, water and atmospheric nanoscience, along with social sciences--all focused on the nano-domain. Since establishing the CENR in 2012, Lead has grown this core of nanotechnology and nanoscience expertise and the CENR has jointly published more than 150 papers together.  

South Carolina’s Eric Vejerano and Jamie Lead Win NSF Grant to Study Engineered Nanomaterials

Assistant professor of environmental nanoscience Dr. Eric Vejerano (principal investigator) and professor of environmental nanoscience, Dr. Jamie Lead (co-principal investigator) have been awarded a $380K, three-year grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The researchers, who are affiliated with the environmental health sciences (ENHS) department and the South Carolina SmartState Center for Environmental Nanoscience and Risk (CENR) in the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina, will investigate the impact of engineered nanomaterials during the thermal treatment of waste, such as incineration. They will also look at how these nanomaterials interact with organic pollutants and form environmentally persistent free radicals (EPFRs).

I Am Public Health: Shelby Butz

Pennsylvania native, Shelby Butz has called South Carolina her home for nearly a decade, with half of that time spent in Columbia as a UofSC student, but she is still exploring the world. With a passion for understanding and protecting marine environments, the environmental health sciences (ENHS) doctoral candidate and South Carolina SmartState Center for Environmental Nanoscience and Risk (CENR) researcher has traveled to Australia (twice), Switzerland, Colorado and Charleston—all in the past year—in her quest to learn more about these varied and complex habitats.

CENR director Jamie Lead builds nano collaborations with Chinese University

Jamie Lead, professor of environmental nanoscience in the department of environmental health sciences and director for the South Carolina SmartState Center for Environmental Nanoscience and Risk (CENR), was recently invited to serve as an adjunct faculty member at Shanxi Agricultural University. During the five-year, funded appointment, Lead will collaborate with other researchers, supervise students and help the university develop a ‘nano' group dedicated to agricultural issues.

Mohammed Baalousha and Eric Vejerano secure nearly $1 million grant from National Science Foundation

Mohammed Baalousha (principal investigator), associate professor in environmental nanoscience, and Eric Vejerano (co-principal investigator), assistant professor in environmental nanoscience, within the SmartState Center for Environmental Nanoscience and Risk (CENR) and the environmental health sciences department of the Arnold School of Public Health, have been awarded nearly one million dollars from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Major Research Instrumentation Program.

Mohammed Baalousha chairs the 19th International Symposium on Field- and Flow-Based Separations

Associate professor Mohammed Baalousha organized and chaired the 19thInternational Symposium on Field- and Flow-Based Separations (FFF2018) in May of this year. An associate professor in environmental nanoscience within the SmartState Center for Environmental Nanoscience and Risk (CENR), Baalousha led the local organizing committee, which included postdoctoral fellow Jingjing Wang, undergraduate research assistant Madeline Terpilowski, and conference coordinator Elizabeth Caulder. He also chaired the scientific committee, which selected the invited speakers, reviewed all abstracts, and planned the conference scientific program.

ENHS/CENR student joins Carolina Diversity Professors Program

ENHS and CENR doctoral student Samantha McNeal has joined the Carolina Diversity Professors Program, which aims to recruit and prepare minority students for careers as college and university professors.

CENR engages K-12 children on the topic of nanomaterials with new program at EdVenture

The Center for Environmental Nanoscience and Risk advances nanoscience outreach and education with the debut of their K-12 program on nanomaterials at Columbia's EdVenture Children's Museum.

CENR Postdoctoral Fellow, Dominic E. Ponton, Awarded ASPIRE Grant

CENR postdoctoral fellow Dominic E. Ponton has been awarded an ASPIRE I, track II from the USC Office of the Vice President for Research. Dr. Ponton has been affiliated with the CENR since January 2015 and is working in collaboration with Dr. Marie-Noele Croteau (USGS, Menlo Park, California), on three-layered silver (Ag) nanoparticles (Ag@gold@Ag) synthesized by the CENR. His postdoctoral project consists of characterizing the binding and uptake of these nanoparticles by a unicellular green alga (Chlamydomonas reinhardtii) and the influence of the alga on the nanoparticle behavior in water. He used this green alga as contaminated food for the grazing snail Lymnaea stagnalis and characterized this trophic transfer. With the $5,000 awarded, Dominic’s mission is to upgrade the CENR facilities to perform high quality ecotoxicological studies with aquatic organisms and also present his results at the SETAC international conference in November 2016, in Orlando (FL). This innovative project will contribute to new graduate activities and help to obtain external funding.

Plants More Vulnerable to Nanoparticles When Parents Grown in Contaminated Soil

New study published in NanoImpact helps fill knowledge gap on the impact of nanotechnology on plants. The results highlight the importance of improving and increasing research on the impact of nanomaterials on plants. Dr Jamie Lead, CENR Director, is co-Editor-in-Chief of NanoImpact.