Keuka College will host a lecture by Dr. Dan Ferreira, assistant professor of environmental science at Kennesaw State University (KSU) Tuesday, May 16.
Dr. Ferreira, who teaches in KSU’s Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology, will discuss “Managing the Fallout in Fukushima: Soil Contamination from a Nuclear Disaster” at 4:15 p.m. in Jephson Hall, room 104. The lecture is free and open to the public.
Part of the College’s 2017 Division of Natural Sciences and Mathematics Spring Lecture Series, Dr. Ferreira’s presentation will seek to uncover how the soil suffered following the 2011 Daiichi nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan. He will discuss the chemistry of radiocesium soil contamination, and the solutions scientists are now seeking.
Dr. Ferreira received a bachelor’s degree in environmental and resource sciences, a master’s degree in geological sciences, and his doctorate in plant science with a specialization in soil chemistry. His current research intends to better understand the retention mechanisms of non-exchangeable cesium cations in clay minerals in order to potentially facilitate the remediation of radiocesium contaminated soils around the site of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.
He has worked as a field geologist, an environmental scientist, an environmental lab technician, and an environmental risk manager. As a soil chemist, Dr. Ferreira investigates the behavior of ions at the mineral/water interface, especially in ion-exchange reactions. Ion exchange processes play a role in many important environmental soil functions such as the retention of nutrients and the fate and transport of pollutants in soil and ground water.
Dr. Ferreira’s doctoral dissertation, “The Nanopore Inner-Sphere (NISE) Effect and Its Role in Sodium Retention” was selected for the 2013 Emil Truog Award. This award is given by the Soil Science Society of America for the doctoral dissertation that made the greatest contribution to advancing the field of soil science in a given year.
