It’s been an exciting decade (almost) for Dr. Melissa Maurer-Jones and her research group at UMD. Since joining the faculty ranks in January 2016, Dr. Maurer-Jones has had the privilege to work with amazing students in the classroom and research lab. She has built a network of colleagues and collaborators that continue to push her scientifically.
Dr. Maurer-Jones began her training at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, getting a Ph.D. in Chemistry under the guidance of Dr. Christy Haynes where she tackled the field of nanoparticle toxicity through the lens of an analytical chemist. Before landing at UMD, she held a postdoctoral fellow position at ETH Zürich in Switzerland, where she worked on a BASF-sponsored project to characterize the photochemical breakdown of biodegradable plastic products with agricultural applications.
Dr. Maurer-Jones continues to bring the interdisciplinary themes of materials science, environmental chemistry, and microbiology into her analytical chemistry lab at UMD. Her lab group have become experts in characterizing and quantifying the environmental degradation of plastics, which includes studying both the transformation processes and fate or toxicity. The goal of her group is to bring a strong materials science and chemistry perspective to an increasingly noticeable problem of plastic pollution.
One of the lab’s first studies in this area quantified the release of microplastics in mesocosms that simulated moving water that were meant to reproduce the mechanical sheer caused by waves or river currents. They discovered that the prevalent microplastic morphology produced was fibers, a morphology often reported in natural sampling studies, and connected their results to some key material property changes. According to Google Scholar, this microplastic characterization study has been cited over 160 times and was named to the “Best Papers of 2020” by the journal Environmental Science: Processes and Impacts.
Other efforts in the lab have been to develop new methods for characterizing the degradation of plastic materials. Innovation using fluorescent stains resulted in work from her lab moving to a patent and the launch of a company Phos Technology, LLC, where Dr. Maurer-Jones serves as the Chief Scientific Officer.
UMD has been a special place for Dr. Maurer-Jones to grow in her science. Because of the geographical location and expertise of colleagues in the Large Lakes Observatory, she has had the opportunity to take her chemistry “outside.” Funded through a number of collaborative grants, Dr. Maurer-Jones has worked closely with Dr. Liz Minor to quantify microplastics in Lake Superior and beyond. This has included numerous trips on the R/V Blue Heron and connections with experts around the world to push our understanding of this contaminant in our natural systems.
Beyond studying the impact of legacy plastic pollution, Dr. Maurer-Jones has also been working to understand the environmental degradation of emerging polymer types to ensure that we are designing the next generation of plastics with the environment in mind. This has resulted in seed funding and collaboration with the Center for Sustainable Polymers, an NSF center based out of UMN-Twin Cities. This work was also the basis for her work that was funded through the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry’s inaugural Warren F. Davis Endowed Chair position. She’s continuing this effort this fall while she holds an SCSE Collaborative Fellowship position with the Natural Resource Research Institute, where they have just established a new biodegradation laboratory to study biodegradability of polymers.
Dr. Maurer-Jones has had the privilege of working with great students throughout her time, having advised 17 master’s students and over 20 undergraduates. She’s excited to continue this work in the next phase of her career and hopes to continue to impact the future UMD students and beyond.
Keep up with the Maurer-Jones lab at the Maurer-Jones Research Group site.