UCLA civil and environmental engineering professor Shaily Mahendra served as co-chair for the Remediation Technologies (RemTEC) & Emerging Contaminants Summit held on October 4-6 in Westminster, Colorado. Working together with Dr. Rula Deeb, Principal at Geosyntec Consultants, and Dr. Kurt Pennell, 250th Anniversary Professor of Engineering at Brown University, Mahendra helped create a technical program of presentations, panels, and workshops, delivered by leading experts within the academic, regulatory, and environmental-consulting communities. The summit delivers a unique platform on advancing environmental science research and policy, as well as remediation practice focusing on chemicals of emerging concern in the environment and innovative technologies for their characterization and mitigation.
Mahendra also served as a mentor in the Student Professional Development program as a member of the Scientific Advisory Board, and presented a keynote talk on “You Don’t Have to do it Alone: Combined Technologies for Treating 1,4-Dioxane and Co-contaminants.”
UCLA civil and environmental engineering assistant professor Sanjay Mohanty also presented a talk entitled, “Smartphone-Enabled Rapid Quantification of Microplastics.” In addition, Ph.D. student David Zgonc presented a poster on “A Survey of Reported Microbially-facilitated Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances’ (PFAS) Biotransformation Pathways (2000-2022): Analytical Trends, Limitations, and Opportunities” at the conference.