Diana Aga
SUNY Distinguished Professor, and Director of RENEW Institute, University at Buffalo, USA
Main research aims? My research involves investigating the fate, transport, treatment, and toxicity of environmental contaminants, including persistent organic pollutants, pharmaceuticals and personal care products and PFAS in environmental and biological samples.
Most critical environmental issue? The identification and quantification of currently “unknown” contaminants and their transformation products that are toxic, even at trace levels – they are highly challenging especially when they occur in complex mixtures. There are still many pollutants that remain unaccounted for in the environment, which are causing deleterious effects on humans and wildlife. Analytical science can help answer many of these environmental mysteries if we use complementary techniques so that we can detect both polar and nonpolar, volatile and non-volatile, organic and inorganic pollutants.
The moral responsibilities of analytical scientists… Analytical scientists are the ones who can develop the methods that can detect harmful chemicals lurking in our environment; and when remediation is implemented, the only way we can determine if cleanup efforts are successful is if we can monitor both disappearance of the parent compound and the appearance of by-products that are no longer toxic.
