Compendium of Survey Results for Members of the Center For Applied Studies
of the Environment of CUNY
January, 1996
Part V: RESEARCH DIRECTION
APPLIED PHYSICS
SAMIR A. AHMED
Professor Ahmed has been active in laser and ionized gas research since the inception of lasers in 1960. Recently, Professor Ahmed has been extending laser and optical sensing techniques to medical diagnostic applications in joint work with Mount Sinai Hospital, and to vehicular traffic monitoring, in conjunction with Traffic Control Technologies, Inc. He is pursuing techniques to conceive and develop novel optical communications techniques intended for high density urban networks. This work is in collaboration with NYNEX, White Plains, NY and Bellcore, NJ. Among his industrial interactions he is collaborating with CONOCO division of Dupont since 1987 on Laser induced Chemistry, and Environmental Remote Sensing of Hazardous Pollutants.
MICHA TOMKIEWICZ
Professor Tomkiewicz's research interests include Photoelectrochemistry, Electrochemistry, Physics and Chemistry of solid-liquid interfaces, Morphology and Transport properties of Composite Media, Solar energy conversion and storage and Environmental studies. Professor Tomkiewicz has had extensive interaction with industry and government receiving more than $1 million in support from sources such as Westinghouse Hanford Co, Exxon Co., U.S. Department of Energy, NYSERDA, ONR and NREL.
APPLIED CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
ANDREAS ACRIVOS
Professor Acrivos's recent research interests have included projects on sedimentation; the rheology of concentrated suspensions; the effective properties of two-phase macroscopically homogeneous systems; and the flow of particles in arteries.
ROBERT A. GRAFF
Professor Graff's recent research projects include thermal treatment of sewage sludge directed at decreasing the amount of sludge produced, increasing the energy (natural gas) yield, reducing water content, and reducing metal contaminants. Another project is designed to make coal a source of transportation fuel economically competitive with petroleum. The process involves steam pretreatment for coal liquefaction- a patented reaction between low temperature water and coal which depolymerizes the material. A third industrially funded research project, to examine the role of sulfates in fluid bed combustion, is aimed at reducing sulfur emissions.
HUMAN ENVIRONMENT AT THE WORKPLACE
ARTHUR M. LANGER
Professor Langer is the Director of the Environmental Sciences Laboratory, a member institute of the Applied Science Institutes located on the Brooklyn College campus. The Environmental Sciences Laboratory is dedicated to the health hazard evaluation of agents in the environment.
ROBERT P. NOLAN
Professor Nolan is the Associate Director of the Environmental Science Laboratory at the Institute for Applied Sciences at Brooklyn College.
The Environmental Science Laboratory projects are:
- Modification of asbestos surface properties
- Biological activity of asbestos substitutes
- Wollastonite in animal lungs
- Evaluation of microscopy laboratories for mineral analysis
- Analysis of talcs, advising most major talc producers
- Asbestos contamination of building air and release of asbestos fibers from products.
WATER RESOURCES
REZA M. KHANBILVARDI
Professor Khanbilvardi's research activity has been marked by a large number of grants and contracts from various local, state, and federal agencies, as well as other private sponsors. He also has been actively engaged in international activities to the republics of the former Soviet Union, especially the Republic of Ukraine, in solving their environmental problems. His research is focused on the areas of water resources analysis, water supply protection, watershed management, waste management, surface and ground water usage, land degradation and environmental monitoring.
LIN FERRAND
Dr. Ferrand's current research focuses on pore-scale modeling of flow and transport in freezing/thawing soils and on defining effective parameters for separate-phase contaminant transport modeling in heterogenous soils.
WATER QUALITY CONTROL
JOHN FILLOS
Professor Fillos's research is in the area of municipal wastewater treatment with concentration in biological nitrogen removal processes. Funding for his projects were primarily from municipalities and over the past five years has exceeded $2 million. The Institute also provided services to a number of consulting firms in the environmental engineering field. These services were intended at establishing a design criteria for projects in New York as well as in New Jersey.
VASIL DIYAMANDOGLU
Professor Diyamandoglu's research interests are in the area of drinking water and wastewater disinfection, chemistry and kinetics of chlorination and chloramination, biological regrowth in drinking water distributions systems, control of drinking water biostability using conventional and advanced oxidation processes, and photooxidation of inorganic contaminants in drinking water. He has participated in joint research with Professor John Fillos in the area of ammonia removal and recovery from wastewater streams using physiochemical processes, and application of in-receiving water storage systems for control of pollution discharge via combined sewer overflows.
ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS
ANN S. HENDERSON
Professor Henderson specializes in the development of methods for gene mapping in human and other mammalian genomes. This work positively assigned the first human autosomal gene. Another area of research involved the first demonstration that exogenous DNA, when introduced into cells, becomes chromosomally integrated and can lead to chromosome aberrations. Professor Henderson showed that electromagnetic fields can change the level of expression of some genes, and is currently supported by grants from NIH, ONR and DOE.
INTEGRATED SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT
MARJORIE J. CLARKE
Ms. Clarke is an environmental scientist and consultant certified as a Qualified Environmental Professional (1994), and is expert in Municipal Solid Waste and Medical Waste management and prevention technologies and practices. As chair of the Manhattan Citizens' Solid Waste Advisory Board from 1992-1994, and still chair of its Waste Prevention Committee, she co-authored a bill now under discussion in the New York City Council, Intro. 509, which promotes more extensive environmental procurement by City government. She is a member of a national task force sponsored by USEPA and the National Recycling Coalition, to devise and promote a national source reduction procurement strategy. Related to this, she is Chair of the Air and Waste Management Association's technical committee on Integrated Waste Management, and will be chairing a session on environmental procurement and environmental shopping at the next AWMA conference.
Her Ph.D. dissertation work centers on the methods and efficacy of environmental shopping educational campaigns as conducted in supermarkets.
THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT
NICHOLAS K. COCH
Professor Coch has more than 25 years of research on effects of major storms on shorelines. He has conducted ground and areal studies of all major hurricanes since 1985. His present research emphasis involves predicting types and extents of hurricane damage by constructing a GIS-based computer model.
DENNIS WEISS
Professor Weiss's recent research projects have involved the postglacial development of coastal environments, as well as, marine and gravel mining. Of primary interest are changes in shoreline positions and their impact on human resources.
MARTIN P. SCHRIEBMAN
Professor Schreibman's interests include understanding the physiology of the brain-pituitary-gonad axis, induction of spacing and ovulation of fin fish under intensive aquaculture conditions, analysis of closed aquatic ecosystems, regenerating life-support systems and assessment of environmental impact on fish physiology and fisheries management. Among his recent contracts and projects:
- NASA: The effect of space flight and zero gravity on the neuroendocrine physiology of an aquatic vertebrate.
- BARD, AID, NATO: Studies on the breeding and rearing of fish under the controlled environmental conditions; induction of puberty in fin fish.
- NYS Science and Technology grant: A scientific assessment of environmental impact on the decline of the winter flounder population in Jamaica Bay, New York.
- National Park Service contract: A program to duplicate the environmental conditions of Jamaica Bay in the lab. in order to breed winter flounder in captivity.
- National Institute of Health: Studies on the development and aging of brain-pituitary-gonad axis using a small tropical fish as a model.
JANE C. GALLAGHER
Professor Gallagher is one of the very few experts in the world on the ecology and genetics of chromophyte microalgae, as well as the potential utility of these algae as artificial fuels, and as a potential source of new drugs. In one of her recent projects she collaborated with the Solar Energy Research Institute in an effort to use these algae for the production of synthetic petroleum using marine diatom, Skeleotnema as a model system for the study of bloom-forming chromophyte algae and to develop new techniques for the identification of species of phytoplankton using molecular approaches. Toxic or noxious blooms, such as the brown tides in Long Island Sound, are also subjects of her research.
GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS
VICTOR GOLDSMITH
Professor Goldsmith is currently studying the impact of various environmental issues on our coasts, oceans, and in our cities, and also the application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to a variety of projects, such as NYC watershed analysis and development of a NYC GIS data base for propagation modeling for NYNEX Science and Technology.
KEITH C. CLARKE
Professor Clarke has written the definitive book on automated cartography, and is the author of five books and many articles, most of them in the field of analytical and computer cartography. Dr. Clarke's research activity in the last ten years has been funded by NASA, National Science Foundation (NSF), CUNY Research Foundation, UNICEF and others. Professor Clarke has reviewed manuscripts for ten major national and international journals in the field of Cartography, GIS, Remote Sensing and Photogrammetric Engineering.
JEFFREY P. OSLEEB
Professor Osleeb is an expert in the area of economic geography and transportation. In past years his research and teaching has concentrated on large scale optimization models and their interface with geographic information systems.
CHEMISTRY OF ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS
AMOS TURK
Professor Turk's research emphasis is on air quality, air purification, and atmospheric odors. Currently he is working on air purification from sewage plants, supported by the New York City Department of Environmental Protection.
DAVID C. LOCKE
Professor Locke's recent applied environmental research involves the study of migration of heavy metals and organic compounds into soil from land-applied NYC biosolids; chemical characterization of sediments and the water column at the Tiffany Street pier, south Bronx, and leaching of chemical substances from recycled plastic timbers used for reconstruction of that pier; development of a test using synthetic fibers as indicators of sewage sludge products and sewage treatment plant effluents; and the development of a Recycled Packaging and Materials Testing Laboratory. He is one of the three-member City Club of New York Expert Panel on the Safety of NYC drinking water.
