Postdoctoral Fellow Accepts Faculty Position in Sweden
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Kuria helps Ana
with her MS thesis on geochemical factors controlling the formation of toxic
hexavalent chromium, Cr(VI), in groundwater.
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Dr. Kuria Ndung’u has accepted a tenure
track faculty position at Stockholm University in Sweden. There
he will continue his research
on the environmental cycles of toxic metals, using new skills he
acquired during his postgraduate studies at the University
of California Santa Cruz (UCSC). Those studies were supported
with a Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation Post Doctoral
Fellowship in Environmental Chemistry, from a grant that was jointly
awarded to Ken
Bruland (Ocean Sciences) and Russ
Flegal (Environmental
Toxicology).
The Dreyfus fellowships are designed to foster
interdisciplinary research by training new Ph.D.’s in analytical
chemistry to adapt their skills to environmental research. Kuria
certainly met
those criteria with a B.Sc. in Chemistry from Kenyatta University
in Kenya, M.Sc. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Botswana
in Botswana, and a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from Lund University
in Sweden.
Although his doctoral dissertation was titled "Liquid Membrane
Extraction Techniques for Trace Metal Analysis and Speciation in
Environmental and Biological Matrices", at UCSC he found that “trace
metal” concentrations in the environment were often a thousand
to a million times lower than he had previously dealt with in his
controlled laboratory studies. He, therefore, quickly acquired the
skills for those measurements and successfully completed several
studies on the sources, transport, speciation, and biogeochemical
cycling of trace metals in the South Atlantic Ocean, San Francisco
Bay estuary, and contaminated groundwaters.
Moreover, he also successfully adapted some of
the analytical techniques that he had developed for his doctoral
research to improve the analytical
capabilities of both Bruland’s and Flegal’s laboratories.
Those efforts are evidenced by the methods papers on trace metal
analysis that he published while at UCSC, along with his complementary
articles on the biogeochemical cycling of those metals. Additionally,
that methodology has been an essential component of the thesis research
of several recent graduates and current students in both Ocean Science
and Environmental Toxicology at UCSC, who have benefited from Kuria’s
mentoring.
It is expected that Kuria will continue his collaborations
with both Bruland’s and Flegal’s groups. Kuria has several
additional manuscripts that he is writing with researchers from both
groups, and he has just begun three new collaborative studies with
some of them. These are on (1) development of a liquid membrane technique
to measure the temporal variation in “bioavailable” copper
and nickel in the South San Francisco Bay, (2) time series analyses
of groundwater contamination at the old military base near UCSC,
Fort Ord, and (3) the geochemical processes regulating the formation
of hexavalent chromium, Cr (VI), in groundwater using the Advanced
Light Source facility at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories, as well
as the Keck Mass Spectrometry facility at UCSC.
So, while we wish Kuria success in his new faculty
position in Sweden, we also eagerly await his returns to UCSC.
We expect these will tend
to occur most often in the winter, when it is freezing there and
balmy here. At least that’s become a pattern for many of Bruland’s
and Flegal’s previous students, who have maintained collaborations
with them – some for decades - after officially leaving Santa
Cruz.
Publications
Kuria Ndung'u, Robert P. Franks, Kenneth W. Bruland
and A. Russell Flegal.
Organic complexation and total dissolved trace metal analysis in
estuarine waters: comparison of solvent-extraction graphite furnace
atomic absorption spectrometric
and chelating resin flow injection inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometric
analysis. Analytica Chimica Acta 2003 481: 127-138 Ndung’u,
K., Franks, R.P., Bruland K.W. and A.R. Flegal. 2003. Organic complexation
and total
dissolved trace metal analysis in estuarine waters: comparison of solvent-extraction
graphite furnace
atomic absorption spectrometric and chelating resin flow injection inductively
coupled plasma-mass
spectrometric analysis. Analytica Chimica Acta 481: 127-138.
Ndung’u, K., M. Thomas and A. R. Flegal.
2001. Silver in the western equatorial and South Atlantic Ocean.
Deep-sea Research
II 48: 2933-2945.
Ndung’u, K., J. R. Donat, M. Thomas, J.
A. Consolvo, and A. R. Flegal. 2001. Intercalibrated lead concentration
measurements
in the Atlantic Ocean.
Deep-sea Research II 48: 2781-2786
Ndung’u, K. and Lennart Mathiasson. 2000.
Microporous membrane liquid-liquid extraction technique combined
with gas chromatography
mass spectrometry for organotin
speciation. Analytica Chimica Acta 404: 319-328.
Ndung’u, K., N.-K. Djane, Fredrik Malcus
and Lennart Mathiasson. 1999. Ultrasonic extraction of hexavalent
chromium in solid samples
followed by automated
analysis using a combination of supported liquid membrane and UV detection
in a flow system. Analyst 124: 1367-1372.
Djane, N.-K., K. Ndung’u, C. Johnsson, H. Sartz, T. Törnström
and L. Mathiasson. 1999. Speciation of chromium in natural waters
using serially connected supported liquid membrane units. Talanta
48: 1121-1132
Armalis, S., I. Kriksciuniene, E. Kubiliene,
N.-K. Djane, K. Ndung’u
and L. Mathiasson. 1999. Stripping analysis of trace metals at a
flow-through reticulated
vitreous carbon electrode after preconcentration using supported
liquid membrane technique. International Journal of Environmental
Analytical Chemistry 74: 233-242
Ndung’u, K., N.-K. Djane and L. Mathiasson.
1998. Determination of trace metal ions by ion-pair chromatography
after enrichment using
supported liquid
membrane. Journal of Chromatography A 826: 103-108
Djane, N.-K., S. Armalis, K. Ndung’u and
L. Mathiasson. 1998. Supported liquid membrane coupled on-line
to potentiometric stripping
analysis at mercury
Coated reticulated vitreous carbon electrode for trace metal determination
in urine. Analyst 123: 393-396
Djane, N.-K., K. Ndung’u, F. Malcus, G.
Johansson and L. Mathiasson. 1997. Supported liquid membrane enrichment
using organophosphorus
extractant for analytical
trace metal determination in river waters. Fresenius Journal of
Analytical Chemistry 358: 822-827
Djane, N.-K., I. A. Bergdahl, K. Ndung’u,
A. Schutz, G. Johansson and L. Mathiasson. 1997. Supported liquid
membrane enrichment combined
with atomic absorption
spectrometry for determination of lead in urine. Analyst 120: 1073-1077
Papantoni, M., N-K Djane, K. Ndung’u, J. Å. Jönsson
and L. Mathiasson. 1995. Trace enrichment of metals using a supported
liquid membrane technique.
Analyst 120:1471-1477
Manuscripts in Preparation
Ndung’u, K. and A. R. Flegal. Temporal
and spatial variation in chromium speciation in the San Francisco
Bay
Ndung’u, K., A. Gonzalez, and A. R. Flegal.
Factors regulating the elevated concentration of hexavalent chromium
in a central California aquifer.
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