News

Congratulations to Shima Ghoochani for successfully defending her Ph.D. dissertation on metal release from potable water pipes.

We had an amazing time running our Girls Experiencing Environmental Engineering (GEEE) summer camp! 

Congratulations to Anandu Nair and Dibya Datta for receiving the J.R. Popalisky Scholarship from Missouri Section of the American Water Work Association (AWWA). 

On Earth Day, our lab represented the College of Engineering at the University of Missouri hosting an educational booth at the Columbia Earth Day Event to highlight a critical issue: the impact of plastics on our environment, with a special focus on agriculture.  

For the second year in a row, SWERL members snagged an overall first place and a third-place award in the student poster competition at the joint annual meeting of the Missouri Water Works Association (MO-AWWA) and the Missouri Water Environmental Association (MWEA). 

Our paper, titled "Development of crosslinked polyvinyl alcohol nanofibrous membrane for microplastic removal from water ," has been featured on the back cover of the Journal of Applied Polymer Science


Our Environmental Pollution Prevention Ambassador Program has concluded with a showcase of student poster presentations at the E-week exhibit event in Mizzou. Thanks to all the high school and middle school students who participated in this program and presented their projects.

Dr. Salehi has presented her latest research on plastic pollution as the keynote speaker at the European Federation of Biotechnology Conference. 

Our paper, titled "Impact of Surface Aging of Potable Water Plastic Pipes on Their Lead Deposition Characteristics," has been featured on the back cover of the Journal of Environmental Science, Water Research, and Technology! 

Dr. Maryam Salehi was featured in the Fall 2023 issue of Mizzou Magazine for her research around keeping microplastics out of our water systems.


“There are no monitoring practices for plastics being released into stormwater, which can end up as our drinking water,” Salehi said. “We need mitigation strategies to control plastic pollution, and I want to encourage policymakers to take action to reduce the consumption of plastics.”


After Hurricane Idalia, our team traveled to Tallahassee, where we partnered with Ebrahim Ahmadisharaf, Nasrin Alamdari, and the Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve. Together, we collected water and sediment samples from Appalachian Bay. 

We had a great time presenting our research on plastic pollution and plastic potable water plumbing at the ACS Midwest Conference. 

Congratulations to Gholamreza Bonyadinejad for successfully defending his Ph.D. dissertation on agricultural plastic pollution. 

Congratulations to Shima Ghoochani for achieving 2nd place in the poster presentation competition at the KY/TN Water Professional Conference (WPC)! 

Our Girl Experiencing Environmental Engineering (GEEE) summer camp is a fantastic opportunity to educate K-12 students about plastic pollution and its management practices. Together, we explored sustainable solutions and inspired the next generation to make a difference. 

Tens of K-12 students visited our Plastic Pollution exhibit at the University of Missouri College of Engineering on March 16th. We asked them about the Solution to Plastic Pollution, and they came up with Cool ideas.  

It was a great pleasure meeting the U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Buttigieg at the University of Missouri-Kansas City on Feb 27th, 2023. Looking forward to the research collaboration with the new Center of Environmentally Responsible Transportation at UMKC. 

Thanks to Prof. Andrew Whelton for visiting Mizzou on Feb 17th, 2023. We enjoyed learning about his disaster response research. 

Congratulations to Md Hadiuzzaman for successfully defending his Ph.D. dissertation on plastics fate and heavy metals transport. 

Dr. Salehi visited Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany in summer 2024 to collaborate with the researchers on her microplastic related studies.