I direct the Environmental Bioinorganic Chemistry Laboratory (EBCL) at FIU, with research interests revolving around environmental chemistry, analytical chemistry, biogeochemistry, and environmental health of of toxic metals and metalloids (e.g., mercury and arsenic), as exemplified below.

We employ a holistic approach to study biogeochemistry of mercury, a global pollutant of worldwide health concern, by investigating the ecosystem-scale mercury cycling and meanwhile focusing on specific transformation and transport processes of mercury. The in-depth studies on critical environmental processes of mercury that currently are of high uncertainty during mercury cycling provide more accurate information necessary to advance the understanding of the overall biogeochemical cycling of mercury.

We base our arsenic studies on the complexity of arsenic speciation that is strongly related to both toxicological and therapeutic effects of arsenic, conducting comprehensive speciation analysis and identifying new species that play key roles during biological metabolism and environmental transformation of arsenic.

We focus uranium studies on the effects of common environmental components on uranium transport and transformation processes, e.g. surface complexation, precipitation, and redox reactions, at contaminated sites that need to be remediated.