Trainee Update: Tomasz Wlodarczyk
Aug. 15, 2023
Tomasz Wlodarczyk is a doctoral student in Environmental Science with a minor in Renewable Natural Resources, under the guidance of Dr. Babst-Kostecka and Dr. Maier. He conducts his research within the Center for Environmentally Sustainable Mining (CESM) where he focuses on localizing plant species that accumulate and tolerate heavy metals, with a particular interest in developing methods to expedite the identification process. To accomplish this, he conducts extensive in-situ surveys of legacy mine sites and natural outcrops in the U.S. Southwest using a portable X-ray fluorescence analyzer (pXRF). With this approach, he can rapidly characterize metal accumulation in thousands of plants, spanning across various plant families.
Wlodarczyk is also exploring methods to upscale the plant identification process using handheld and aerial hyperspectral imaging systems, and he is investigating metal allocation in different plant species using Micro X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy. Upon data acquisition, he plans to develop a reproducible pipeline for data integration into the database following open science principles, making the data widely accessible. This will allow mining companies and researchers to make informed decisions on which plant species to use for various environmental purposes such as phytoremediation, revegetation, and metal recovery.
Wlodarczyk is currently working on his first publication, “Identification of native metal-accumulating and tolerating plant species at the legacy copper tailings facility in Arizona.” He has presented his research at various conferences including 35th Annual Superfund Research Conference in Raileigh, North Carolina; Society of Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration (SME) Conference in Tucson, Arizona, and Denver, Colorado; and the International conference on Arabidopsis research in Belfast, United Kingdom. He is also a recipient of several awards, including CNRS-UArizona IRC Graduate Fellowship, Southern Arizona Environmental Management Society (SAEMS) Scholarship, and College of Agriculture and Life Sciences scholarship as well as the First Place PhD Presenter at the local university event “ENVIsion.”
Tomasz is an active member of the environmental science student community, engaging in a variety of outreach activities for science communication and education. He has participated in radio interview for KXCI radio, hosted exhibition to promote CESM organization, and volunteered at local environmental organizations. Through these efforts, he aims to raise awareness about the importance of sustainable mining practices and promote the use of native metal accumulating and tolerating plant species for phytoremediation. In the future, Tomasz plans to continue his research on plant-metal interactions and develop novel methods for identifying metal-accumulating plant species. He hopes to use his findings to inform policy decisions and promote more sustainable mining practices worldwide.