UNL CEE is shaking things up in the world of PFAS with the first-ever 'Great Plains PFAS Initiative Symposium & Workshop 2024', organized by our CEE professors, Nirupam Aich, Shannon Bartelt-Hunt, and Xu Li.
This multi-institution collaboration between Great Plains and EPSCoR states brought academics, utilities, industries, regulatory agencies, communities, and stakeholders under the same umbrella to address and discuss the current and future steps to address the Forever Chemical problem. This 2-day workshop and symposium brought together >60 participants from 7 states, 9 Universities, state and federal agencies, water treatment industry, and municipalities to create a large-scale initiative to understand and solve the PFAS pollution in water, food, agriculture, and human health. The highly interactive discussions among the participants led to the identification of potential research needs and gaps, avenues for collaborations, and future development of a larger Collaboratory.
The keynote speeches were delivered by Dr. Mohamed Ateia Ibrahim from the USEPA & Rice University and Dr. Hossain Azam from the University of the District of Columbia. Among the attendees were also faculties from UNMC College of Public Health, UNMC College of Dentistry, North Dakota State University, University of Kentucky, The University of Kansas, Kansas State University, South Dakota Mines, Oklahoma State University, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Participants from water industry and agencies included HDR and Tetra-Tech as well as Lincoln and Omaha wastewater utilities and Nebraska Department of Energy and Environment (NDEE).
This initiative, symposium, and workshop was made possible by the support primarily from the Nebraska EPSCoR, UNL Office of Research & Innovation, and UNL College of Engineering. The co-sponsors included Waters Corporation, VWR, and Metrohm.
