NARRAGANSETT, R.I., May 1, 2017鈥擲hampoo makes our hair smell good, but at a price. Sweet-smelling tresses bring polluted waterways.
That鈥檚 the conclusion of Carrie McDonough, who will receive her doctorate in oceanography from the 溏心vlog免费B站鈥檚 Graduate School of Oceanography this month.
During her five years at GSO, McDonough has distinguished herself by researching how chemicals in products we use every day, like shampoo, are contaminating waterways.
She came to GSO from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology鈥攚here she received her bachelor鈥檚 in chemistry鈥攖o work with Rainer Lohmann, an internationally recognized expert in marine pollutants.
McDonough had a successful run at GSO and will continue down that road at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colo. In June, she鈥檒l join the laboratory of Professor Chris Higgins in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering to study fluorinated pollutants.
鈥淚鈥檓 excited to begin my new work,鈥� says McDonough. 鈥淔luorinated chemicals are a huge cause for concern now, especially because of their widespread contamination in drinking water supplies.鈥�
Higgins is a leading expert in using advanced analytical equipment to measure highly fluorinated organic chemicals that, for more than 60 years, have been in rain-proofing materials and products such as nonstick coatings, like Teflon.
They were widely used in firefighting foams to combat fuel-based fires at airports and military fire-training areas, and now they have become persistent pollutants contaminating the country鈥檚 drinking water supplies, as was recently seen in Hoosick Falls, N.Y., and the Ohio River Valley.
It鈥檚 vital to measure organic pollutants in the environment. The chemicals have been linked to serious human health maladies, including kidney cancer and suppression of the immune system so the body cannot make antibodies correctly.
鈥淭here are still a lot of fluorinated chemicals in our environment, and in our bodies, that we know nothing about,鈥� says McDonough. 鈥淲e need to understand how these chemicals are transported and transformed in the environment, and what they do when they find their way into the human body.鈥�
Science鈥攑articularly how humans alter the environment鈥攈as fascinated McDonough since Hathaway Brown School, a private all-female K-12 school in Cleveland, Ohio. After graduating from MIT, McDonough took a break from her studies to play rhythm guitar in a rock band and work as an environmental consultant in Massachusetts.
GSO was a perfect fit. McDonough studied two groups of compounds: flame retardants, which are added to furniture, electronics and plastic toys to decrease flammability; and synthetic fragrances, which are added to shampoo, soap, deodorant, detergent and cleaning supplies. These chemicals can end up polluting waterways if they break down and travel to fragile environments, like the Arctic.
During her research at GSO, McDonough used passive polyethylene, or sheets of plastic, to discover and then measure the contaminants in Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, as well as the North Atlantic and the Canadian Arctic.
McDonough鈥檚 results involving flame retardants are disturbing: She found that sizeable concentrations of the chemicals exist in remote ocean waters. It鈥檚 troubling, she says, that the chemicals end up in such a delicate environment like the Arctic, which can be easily thrown off balance.
At Colorado School of Mines, McDonough will learn how to identify and measure fluorinated chemicals. Hundreds of these chemicals are still not identified, which means little is known about their abundance in waterways or toxicity.
McDonough will use a high-resolution mass spectrometry to analyze the chemicals, and measure these chemicals in blood and tissues of mice to better understand what they do to living creatures.
Her work with Professor Lohmann, she says, prepared her for her next academic journey. It鈥檚 no surprise to McDonough鈥檚 colleagues that in March she won the C. Ellen Gonter Environmental Chemistry Award from the American Chemical Society, the highest honor given by the organization鈥檚 Division of Environmental Chemistry.
At GSO, McDonough also started a marine science blog, oceanbites, which covers marine science with clarity and humor. She鈥檒l continue the blog after she leaves GSO and also start another, , which will focus on environmental science research topics such as toxicology and urban pollution.
鈥淚鈥檝e had the opportunity at GSO to work with so many expert faculty who have expressed real interest in my work and helped me become an independent researcher,鈥� says McDonough. 鈥淚鈥檝e had a wonderful experience.鈥�