UA SRC Proposals Funded by School of Mining and Mineral Resources
Jan. 15, 2022
The University of Arizona Superfund Research Center (UA SRC) investigators and collaborators were awarded over $160,000 in funding from the Mineral Resources Research and Innovation Initiative, a new University of Arizona program from the School of Mining and Mineral Resources.
This initiative provides seed funding and strategic investments for research and education related to mineral resources.
Six UA SRC investigators and collaborators received awards, funded through the end of the fiscal year (June 2022).
- Dr. Monica Ramirez-Andreotta, Environmental Science Department (ENVS) Associate Professor and Research Translation Director for the UA SRC, was awarded $25,000 for the proposal, “Community Science and Data Integration: Integrating and Visualizing Vulnerabilities and Resiliencies in Rural Mining Communities.” These funds will be used to build an environmental health mapping and data visualization tool called the Health Opportunity Wellness Landscape (HOWL) that can be used by community members, policymakers, industry, and researchers to address environmental health resiliencies and vulnerabilities in Arizona mining communities and address disparities across the state.
- Dr. Jon Chorover, ENVS Department Head and Project 4 Principal Investigator (PI), was awarded $23,716 for the proposal, “Measurement and modeling of sulfide tailings diagenesis in controlled experimentation: Implications for mine waste remediation.” The project will involve the construction and deployment of instrumented column experiments with arsenic-bearing mine tailings to help constrain the development of a reactive transport model of coupled hydrologic and geochemical processes controlling arsenic mobility during tailings diagenesis under climatic forcing.
- Dr. Aikseng Ooi, Associate Professor in the Department pf Pharmacology and Toxicology and PI for the UA SRC Data Management and Analysis Core, was awarded $19,000 for the proposal, “Data Integration and Management for Mining.” These funds will be used to extend the web applications of data developed for Project 4 into visualization and storage of data generated from the mining and mineral resources research.
- Dr. Julia Neilson, ENVS Associate Research Professor and Director for the Center for Environmentally Sustainable Mining (CESM), was awarded $55,411 for the proposal, “Center for Environmentally Sustainable Mining Strategic Development.” This award will be used to fund students working on plant ecology projects at the Mission Mine and Resolution Mines in Arizona.
- Dr. Minkyu Kim, CESM Collaborator, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Arizona. Dr. Kim’s proposal, “Development of Eco-Friendly Dust-Controlling Materials for Mining Industry,” got an award of $22,762. This project will focus on the development of glycolipid-based dust suppressants to mitigate dusts from mine tailings and vehicular traffic on unpaved haulage roads.
- Dr. Douglas Loy, Professor of Materials Science & Engineering and CESM Collaborator, was awarded $17,000 for the proposal, “Surface Modified Foams and Hydrophilic Gels Tailored to Remove Toxic Heavy Metals from Contaminated Soils and Water."
Future funding depends on continuing state appropriation and an updated proposal for next fiscal year.