Part 1: What’s In My Drinking Water? Part 2: An Unconventional Path to a Rewarding Environmental Career
Dr. Susan D. Richardson
Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, University of South Carolina
 Abstract
Drinking water disinfection by-products (DBPs) are an unintended consequence of using chemical disinfectants to kill harmful pathogens in water. DBPs are formed by the reaction of disinfectants with naturally occurring organic matter, bromide, and iodide, as well as from anthropogenic pollutants, such as pharmaceuticals and pesticides. Potential health risks of DBPs from drinking water include bladder cancer, early-term miscarriage, and birth defects. Several DBPs, such as trihalomethanes (THMs), haloacetic acids (HAAs), bromate, and chlorite, are regulated in the U.S. and in other countries, but other “emerging” DBPs, such as iodo-acids, halobenzoquinones, halonitromethanes, haloamides, halofuranones, and nitrosamines are not widely regulated. This presentation will provide a state-of-the-science overview of the formation of DBPs and how we use gas chromatography (GC) and liquid chromatography (LC) with high resolution-mass spectrometry to comprehensively identify unknown DBPs. In addition, recent work will be presented on the impacts of hydraulic fracturing on DBP formation, as well as new research using granular activated carbon (GAC) to try to remove DBP precursors and make drinking water safer.  Finally, because this lecture is primarily to undergraduates, I will share some about my unconventional path to a rewarding career in environmental chemistry. My path illustrates how you don’t necessarily have to exactly know what you want to do for your career.
BIO:
Dr. Richardson is the Arthur Sease Williams Professor of Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of South Carolina. Prior to coming to USC, she was a Research Chemist for several years at the U.S. EPA’s National Exposure Research Laboratory. Susan is the recipient of the 2008 American Chemical Society Award for Creative Advancements in Environmental Science & Technology, has received an honorary doctorate from Cape Breton University in Canada (2006), and was recognized as an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and an ACS Fellow. Susan is also the Vice President/President Elect for the American Society for Mass Spectrometry. Susan also serves as an Associate Editor for the journals Environmental Science & Technology and Water Research, and on the Editorial Advisory Board of Analytical Chemistry, Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry, Journal of Hazardous Materials, Environmental Science and Pollution Research, and Journal of Environmental Sciences.
Susan has published >160 journal articles and book chapters and writes an invited biennial review for Analytical Chemistry, entitled “Water Analysis: Emerging Contaminants and Current Issues”. She has a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Emory University and a B.S. in Chemistry & Mathematics from Georgia College & State University.