Amy Landis
Michigan Technological University, MI·Engineering
Plastic waste now turns up in oceans, soils, drinking water, food and even human bodies. Some of it is visible trash; some has broken down into microplastics and nanoplastics too small to see.
- Fields
Engineering
Earth & Environmental Science
- Topics
microplastics
nanoplastics
plastic pollution
- Grants
- 3 known grants, through Jun 2030
What they work on
- 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.
- Measure micro and nano plastics at six sites (California, Colorado, Michigan, New York, Dominican Republic, Belize) using ASTM-based sampling, and test whether their concentrations correlate with macro-plastic concentrations.
- Evaluate whether satellite and aerial imagery can estimate plastic presence in aquatic environments, and test mitigation and resource-recovery scenarios with a network of over 200 expert stakeholders.
- Map seasonal sargassum seaweed flows with satellite and aerial imagery and correlate them with field plastic measurements to predict when, where and how much sargassum-plastic material arrives.
- Design and test new collection and processing methods for sargassum-plastic waste, and use pyrolysis to convert it into waxes, chemicals and char for composite lumber and concrete products.
- Convene US and Caribbean researchers through a workshop and design charrette to identify knowledge gaps and write a strategic plan and research roadmap for a circular plastics economy.
More about the research
No one has a good map of where these plastics come from or where they build up, so it is hard to design solutions that work. This research tracks plastics of all sizes through the environment in the United States and the Caribbean, looks for ways to recover plastic waste as a resource (including turning beached seaweed mixed with plastic into building materials), and builds an international network to plan a circular plastics economy, in which materials are reused rather than discarded.
Why it matters
Coastal and island communities in the Caribbean and southern US face growing plastic pollution and costly sargassum landings that harm fishing, tourism and health. Clearer maps of where plastics flow and accumulate could help waste managers and governments target interventions that limit human and environmental exposure. Turning sargassum-plastic waste into concrete and composite lumber could help pay for cleanup, and a shared roadmap could guide recycling approaches suited to small island nations.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
IRES: Sargassum-Plastic Sustainable Solutions (SPlaSS) in the Caribbean
NSF · Oct 2025 – Jun 2030
RARE-1: Estimating macro, micro & nano plastic flows to improve plastic solution strategies for geographically variable locations
NSF · Oct 2025 – May 2028
AccelNet-Design: Circular Economy Network for Plastics in the US & Caribbean
NSF · Oct 2025 – Jul 2027
Closest labs
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.
Mark Wiesner
Duke University, NC·Earth & Environmental Science
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.
Amisha Shah
Purdue University, IN·Engineering
Measure baseline concentrations of critical metals in leachates from US municipal solid waste landfills, which are currently unknown.
The school
Michigan Technological University: 9 labs on PI Pages, $107M a year on research, 86 research doctorates a year.
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