ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
THE CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
The Center for Environmental Sciences (CES) conducts research and promotes dialogue that
focuses on understanding and posing solutions for environmental problems. Through its
multi-disciplinary research, the Center supports projects of faculty and students from the College
of Liberal Arts and Sciences (environmental sciences, chemistry, biology, geology, physics) and
the College of Engineering. Graduate students have been supported through ongoing research
within CES: examples include various studies of the impact of producing oil from oil shale,
uranium tailing piles, human exposure to heavy metals at old mining sites; the Denver Brown
Cloud; the effects of oxygenated fuels and photochemical effects on air quality in the Denver
metropolitan area; the impact of pollution on alpine tundra, subalpine forests (cooperatively with
CU-Boulder), and on eastern U.S. deciduous forests (cooperatively with Harvard University, the
U.S. Forest Service, and the USEPA).
The CES Analytical Laboratory applies analytical techniques to measure environmentally
important species. By providing tools and resources for projects, the Analytical Lab supports
faculty-advised student research and performs analytical services contracts. Recently, the lab
has been involved in developing a monitor which measures the degradation of photovoltaic cells,
building a growth chamber to measure the uptake of pollutants by plants, the analysis of arginine
concentrations in tree needles, and measuring selenium concentrations in aquatic plants.
The Center for Environmental Sciences supports CU-Denver' s mission as a New Urban
University striving to increase the exchange of knowledge between the University and the city
and to form partnerships with the community. The Center is available for externally funded
research and contractual projects from the public and private sectors. This year the Center was a
sponsor of the Fourth Annual Air & Waste Management Association (AWMA) Student Poster
Session and the First Rocky Mountain AWMA Conference--a one-day meeting on campus with
sessions dealing with regional issues on Air Quality, Resource Management and Regulation.
Through its research efforts the CES has developed relationships with several federal and state
agencies including the U.S. EPA and the Colorado Dept. of Public Health and Environment.
Information exchange and, on occasion, personnel training in analytical chemistry and/or
statistical and environmental data interpretation have been a part of these relationships.
Interactions with several University departments, especially Chemistry, have been and continue
to be an important aspect of day-to-day activities.
The CES and its Faculty Associates cooperate with the private sector on environmental research
and assessment questions. In some cases graduate student internships have been incorporated
into such collaborative efforts. These activities are strongly encouraged especially where an
educational aspect is identified. Please contact the Center for Environmental Sciences if
interested.
CES Faculty Associates' research interests:
- Larry Anderson (landerso@carbon.cudenver.edu) of Chemistry and Director of the Center
for Environmental Sciences works in the area of air pollution chemistry, especially that of the
formation and degradation of aldehydes and ketones. Dr. Anderson is influential in the
continued review of the Oxygenated Fuels Programs in Denver and other metropolitan
regions.
- Jeff Boon (jboon@carbon.cudenver.edu) of Environmental Sciences is Manager of the CES
Analytical Laboratory He is interested in the application of modern instrumental techniques
toward the monitoring of the environment. Jeff is available to assist students with their
research projects as well as perform and supervise analytical services contracted by the CES.
- Frederick Chambers (fchamber@carbon.cudenver.edu) of Geography interests are focused
in physical geography and glacier-climate relations. He has over 10 years of research and
field experience in geomorphology, alpine glaciology and climatology in areas of Alaska and
the Sierra Nevada of California with recent research concentrated on snow/ice processes and
energy balance climatology.
- Willard Chappell (wchappel@carbon.cudenver.edu) of Physics and Director of the
Environmental Sciences Program has led major studies of environmental trace substances,
such as molybdenum and lead, and the human health risk assessment of these substances for
two decades. He is co-chair of the International Arsenic Exposure and Human Health Effects
Task Force.
- John Lanning (jlanning@castle.cudenver.edu) of Chemistry is presently working on
chemical, biological, physical and psychosocial factors involved with indoor air pollution
problems. Dr. Lanning is collaborating with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory on
catalytic oxidation techniques to mitigate indoor air pollution problems. Drs. Anderson and
Lanning collaborate in measuring and analyzing chemical species in the atmosphere.
- Wes LeMasurier (wlemasur@carbon.cudenver.edu) of Geology has been interested in
volcanoes and their deposits, especially those in Antarctica. His work on these deposits
indicate the West Antarctic ice sheet has existed for at least 25 million years and that the ice
sheet has been vulnerable to past climatic change and is likely to respond to greenhouse
warming.
- Anuradha (Anu) Ramaswami (aramaswa@carbon.cudenver.edu) of Civil Engineering has
research interests in mathematical modeling with experimental investigations of fate and
transport of pollutants in soil-water systems, bioavailability and biotransformation rates in
environmental systems, bioremediation of soil and groundwater contaminated with fuel
wastes and coal tar, phytoremediation of metallic and organic.
- Timberley Roane (troane@carbon.cudenver.edu) Biology. Research: Mechanisms of
microbial metal resistance and detoxification; Effects of metals on microbial degradation of
toxic organic compounds; Efficacy of microbial bioremediation of metal/organic
contaminated sites
- Herman Sievering (hsieveri@carbon.cudenver.edu), Director of Global Change and
Environmental Quality (GCEQ)Program, has been working on atmospheric pollution sulfur
chemistry and physics with ongoing research into the cycling of sulfur aerosols between the
atmosphere and oceans. He also studies the nitrogen cycle, in the Rocky Mountain region and
at temperate forests, the latter performed under a cooperative research agreement between
CES and the U.S. EPA.
- Diana Tomback (dtomback@carbon.cudenver.edu) of Biology has research interests in the
area of evolutionary and behavioral ecology, especially plant-animal interactions of pines that
are bird-dispersed. She has been funded, for several years now, by the U.S. Forest Service to
study the dispersal biology of whitebark pine, a declining forest species in the northern Rocky
Mountains.
- John Weihaupt of Geology studies polar and oceanographic systems with emphasis on
nonlinear relationships. A polar explorer and veteran of three expeditions to the Antarctic,
Dr. Weihaupt is the discoverer of "The Wilkes Land Anomaly" in Victoria Land, Antarctica,
potentially the largest meteorite impact crater on Earth.
- John Wyckoff (jwyckoff@spatial.cudenver.edu) of Geography uses Geographic Information
Systems and Remote Sensing Applications in his research in the environmental sciences.
For further information about the Center for Environmental Sciences and its research activities,
please call or write:
Address: |
Dr. Larry Anderson
(landerso@carbon.cudenver.edu)
The Center for Environmental Sciences
The University of Colorado at Denver
Campus Box 136
P.O. Box 173364
Denver, CO 80217-3364 |
| Office: |
North Classroom Building, Room 3208C |
| Telephone: |
(303) 556-2963 |
| Fax: |
(303) 556-4292 |
The analytical laboratory of The Center for Environmental Sciences puts on a popcorn hour at
1500 hrs. every Wednesday. The hour is used for broad ranging discussions in an informal setting.
Please feel free to stop by and visit.
visitors since June 7, 1999
This page was written by Rosemary Wormington (rworming@carbon.cudenver.edu); and constructed by Jeff Boon
(jboon@carbon.cudenver.edu). Latest Revision: February 29, 2000
