Ike Irby M.P.P. ’17, Ph.D. ’17 joined the office of Vice President Kamala Harris as environmental policy advisor in January. Ike’s previous role was senior policy advisor to Harris in the U.S. Senate, covering climate, environment, energy, transportation and infrastructure. He also served as an intern in the Office of Science and Technology and Policy during the second Obama administration. Read more about him.
Laurence Libelo Ph.D. ’95 recently moved to EPA Office of Land and Emergency Management to be the chief of the Science Policy Branch in the Office of Superfund Remediation and Technology Innovation. He manages an interdisciplinary group of scientists, engineers and policy experts overseeing and coordinating technical and policy aspects of how sediment, soil and groundwater are cleaned up at Superfund sites. Prior to this he was a senior environmental engineer in the EPA Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxic Substances, evaluating human and ecology risks of chemicals that are in or proposed for commerce in the U.S. He worked for about 17 years on perfluoro chemical fate and transport, exposure and risk assessment. Laurence is a professorial lecturer in the chemistry department of George Washington University, where for the last 16 years he has taught environmental chemistry and chemical fate and transport to undergraduate and graduate students. EPA service is a family affair in the Libelo-Gallagher household. Kathryn (Kitty) Gallagher Ph.D. ’95 is chief of the Ecological Risk Assessment Branch in the EPA Office of Water, Office of Science and Technology. Kitty and Laurence are parents to teenagers, too.
Jennie Gundersen ’85, M.A. ’86, Ph.D. ’95 couldn’t stay landlocked for long. After being desiccated for a year with EPA’s Office of Land and Emergency Management in the high desert of Colorado, she returned to the coast of Rhode Island, joining EPA Office of Research and Development’s Atlantic Coastal Environmental Sciences Division (ACESD) in Narragansett as a research chemist. Jennie will be leading research on method development and standardization for micro- and nanoplastics analysis in sediments and water. She will also be offering advice on the best spots to sample steamers and lobstah! Jennie’s new coworkers include VIMSers Giancarlo Cicchetti Ph.D. ’98, research ecologist, and Charlie Strobel, research biologist.
EPA Office of Research and Development’s Bronze Medal was recently awarded to a team of scientists who collaborated to execute an international, multiagency field study in 2019 investigating the drivers and impacts of widespread bottom hypoxia and harmful algal blooms in Lake Erie. Team members included Joel Hoffmann Ph.D. ’06, Richard Kraus M.S. ’98, Janet Nestlerode M.A. ’96, Ph.D. ’04 and Elizabeth Hinchey Malloy M.A. ’96, Ph.D. ’02. Some project highlights can be found at www.usgs.gov/center-news/new-sediment-profiling-imaging-system-deployed-lake-erie and www.glri.us/node/249.
Readers, your class reporters, Scoop Hinchey and Newshound Nestlerode, want your updates for future columns. Call in more “Quips” to share with fellow alumni — y’all know who you are!