Mark Wiesner
Duke University, NC·Earth & Environmental Science
New materials, from nanoparticles to plastics, shape farming, transport, water treatment and medicine. Each also raises a question: what happens to these materials once they enter the environment or the human body?
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
Engineering
Materials Science
- Topics
environmental nanotechnology
nanomaterials
nanoparticles
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Dec 2026
What they work on
- Coordinate international studies on particle-based delivery systems for nutrients and pesticides in agriculture, materials used in transportation, and advanced materials for water treatment and resource recovery.
- Assess the environmental and health consequences of micro- and nanoplastics and of engineered and incidental bio-particles using shared mesocosm and ecotoxicity facilities.
- Develop common protocols and compatible informatics and modeling platforms that predict the fate, behavior and impacts of particulate materials in the environment.
- Expand access to spectroscopy, imaging and synchrotron X-ray facilities across U.S., European and Ghanaian partners through facilitated access and international lab rotations.
More about the research
Judging whether a material is sustainable is a global problem. It needs shared data, shared test methods and expertise from many fields.
Why it matters
A shared, international basis for judging materials could help regulators, industry and scientists find out earlier whether nanomaterials, agricultural particle products, water-treatment materials and micro- and nanoplastics pose risks to ecosystems or human health. Better pooled data and common test methods may guide the design of safer, more sustainable materials.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Amy Landis
Michigan Technological University, MI·Engineering
Build a probabilistic material flow analysis of macro, micro and nano plastics in the US and Caribbean to locate the largest flows, losses and accumulation, including flows into compartments such as food and humans.
Mahamud Subir
Ball State University, IN·Chemistry
Determine thermodynamic and kinetic adsorption parameters of charged and neutral organic probe molecules at micro- and nano-plastic/water interfaces, using surface-selective second harmonic generation (SHG) spectroscopy and quartz crystal microbalance measurements.
Trevor Thornton
Arizona State University Campus Immersion, AZ·Materials Science
Provide open external access to three core facilities spanning semiconductor device, sensor and micro-electro-mechanical systems fabrication, advanced electron microscopy and materials characterization, and bio-synthetic nanomaterials.
The school
Duke University: 61 labs on PI Pages, $1.6B a year on research, 417 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.