David K.Ryan Ph.D

Dr. David K. Ryan is an environmental/analytical chemist whose research interests center around the development of instrumental techniques to determine the various forms and reactions of pollutants in the environment. He has been involved in projects aimed at the assessment of chemical processes and environmental monitoring for over thirty-five years. For nearly eight years, he conducted research at the Edgerton Research Laboratory of the New England Aquarium and performed several studies of contaminants in Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay. These included analysis of trace elements, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other parameters in water, biota, soil and sediments. These projects were funded by the Massachusetts Bays Program, the South Essex Sewerage District (SESD), the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Dr. Ryan has been involved in the analysis of trace metal pollutants in Lake Chapala, Mexico with funding from the Government of Mexico and investigation of the impact of agrochemicals on the waters of Tortuguero, Costa Rica, funded by the Caribbean Conservation Corps. Work in the area of soil remediation has focused on the use of electrokinetics for the removal of inorganic contaminants and soil flushing with surfactants for the removal of organic compounds. Grants from the U.S. Geological Survey through the Water Resources Research Center at UMass Amherst have funded this work. Current research efforts are directed in three primary areas; the use of fluorescence spectroscopy to study the binding of potential pollutants to humic materials (fluorescence quenching/enhancement), investigation of novel methods to measure and remediate trace metal pollutants in soil and water (artificial phytoremediation and field portable electronic tongue), and nanostructured metal catalysts for the production of fuels (hydrogen and hydrocarbons) from carbon dioxide and water.  Funding in recent years has been from NSF, DOE, Mass DEP, Bausch & Lomb and the Massachusetts Technology Transfer Center (MTTC).