Research interests: My current research focuses on ways to reduce the impact of the environment on human health. For two decades, I coordinated earth-science and mitigation efforts under Columbia’s Superfund Research Program on the origin and health effects of elevated levels of arsenic in groundwater. A theme that runs through this and other on-going projects, e.g. concerning fluoride in groundwater in India, bauxite dust in Guinea, or soil contaminated with lead from mine-tailings in Peru, is that patterns of contamination are spatially very heterogeneous. This complicates prediction but often also points the way to mitigation when the hazard can be mapped. For this reason, I am a firm believer in the more widespread use of field kits by non-specialists to reduce exposure to environmental toxicants, particularly in developing countries. I collaborate with public health and social scientists to evaluate how such kits can be deployed at scale and have published over 150 peer-reviewed papers on this and other environmental topics. I hold a research professor appointment at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and am a member of the Earth Institute faculty at Columbia University.
Latest Highlight
Fallout of Lead Over Paris From the 2019 Notre-Dame Cathedral Fire July 9, 2020
A soil survey indicates that a ton of lead dust was deposited within 1 km of the cathedral. [Download PDF]
Arsenic Contamination is Common in Punjabi Wells, Study Finds Earth Institute blog linked to publication of results from large-scale testing campaign of wells in Punjab plains of Pakistan and India in Science of the Total Environment in December 2018.
Q&A With Lex Van Geen on Arsenic Contamination Q&A about well-water arsenic with Peter Debaere, Professor of Business Administration, Darden School of Business, on the occasion of an invited World Water Event talk at the University of Virginia in February 2018.