Still, she was surprised by what she saw in Newark’s Ironbound and the proximity of polluters to children playing in the streets. “It was startling to me because of the health risks,” she says.

The industrial neighborhood – a concentration of factories and warehouses, a power plant, chemical refineries, the state’s largest garbage incinerator and a Superfund site – has long been the focus of protests and activists dedicated to uplifting this overburdened community of color, continuing a fight for clean air and land.

“The stories we heard of the activism – what’s been, what’s in the works, what’s going on – that aspect gave us hope,” adds Leanna Sanchez ’22, who joined Polius and other students in a ����vlog Anthropology class for a tour around the Ironbound.

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Dr. Sandra Passchier is a leading Antarctic sedimentologist whose extensive research highlights Cenozoic paleoclimate change. She has accomplished this work while training and mentoring a diverse group of future scientists. — , Wesleyan University

Deng and his team of researchers at the Water Innovation, Sustainability, and Engineering (WISE) Laboratory are working to make the process of providing clean water simpler, more cost effective, more sustainable and available to everyone from first world nations, to developing countries, to victims of natural disasters, to urban households and beyond.

On May 3, Deng presented the results of his yearlong research as the University Distinguished Scholar for 2020-2021 in a lecture fittingly titled, “Innovative Solutions to Water Challenges.”

After taking viewers through the “urban water cycle” – factoring human activity into the well-known water cycle graphic that school children learn – Deng notes his team’s ambitious workload: “My lab is working in drinking water treatment, wastewater reuse, stormwater management, groundwater cleanup, and industrial wastewater treatment.” He shares the WISE Lab’s goal: “Use chemical and physical principles to mitigate contamination in different environmental systems for environmental sustainability/resilience as well as public/ecological health.”

In short, “we want to protect human and ecosystem health,” says Deng, with “collaboration as key,” working with experts from various countries and across fields as diverse as economics, chemistry and the social sciences.

While the WISE Lab has been working on a number of innovative technologies and designs, Deng’s lecture focused on two: ferrate(VI) technologies and beneficial reuse of industrial waste for stormwater treatment. Deng explained that his team was facing the challenge of making water safe from traditional contaminants, but also emerging pollutants such as antibiotics, hormones, algal toxins and PFAS – “forever chemicals” that have been used on everything from clothing to frying pans.

“Traditional methods cannot well address these challenges,” says Deng. “That’s why we need innovation. That’s why our research must focus on new thoughts or solutions for addressing these challenges.”

“That’s what we do.”

Story by Staff Writer Mary Barr Mann

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