Being a desert community makes water a precious resource, and preserving it even more crucial. 

A UNLV research team led by Zhange Feng and Hanqing Pan, both assistant professors with the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, secured a $2.1 million U.S. Department of Energy award to create an academic curriculum and training system to develop the next generation of leaders to address soil and groundwater remediation throughout the Southwest.

The goal of remediation is to remove environmental contaminants and pollutants from outdoor waterways and soil. This is important because contaminants can be hazardous to humans and wildlife. In humans, exposure to these contaminants can cause health problems, including neurological or respiratory issues, cancer, or birth defects. 

“Contaminated soil can pollute surface and groundwater, which in turn can affect our drinking water,” says Pan. “Contaminant removal matters to the everyday person because we need clean water to live and noncontaminated soil for development and farming.”

Many cleaning products, paint, cookware, and food packaging contain synthetic compounds, which are ubiquitous and do not degrade easily. Having methods to remove these types of contaminants from our soil and groundwater is important to keep our communities healthy.

“The goal of this project is to foster a sustainable and diverse workforce pipeline for environmental management and to boost environmental protection and economic development in Southern Nevada,” says Feng. 

Teaching Students

Soil and groundwater remediation falls under a branch of science known as environmental chemistry, where jobs were projected to grow by 6% between 2018 and 2028. 

Along with offering an expanded curriculum within the current general and analytical chemistry courses focused on this growing field, Feng and Pan will also purchase an atomic force microscope (AFM) to elevate the level of instruments available in the lab and strengthen student training and research opportunities. 

“We hope to develop advanced techniques to detect and quantify soil and water contaminants, and train more students to work with water and soil remediation,” says Feng. 

Updated equipment will also allow them to recruit more students, earlier, into the program. The team plans to offer workshops, seminars, and annual tours of national laboratories. “One of the strengths of this proposal is in starting to get students interested in environmental chemistry in their freshman and sophomore years, as well as offering lab experience in their undergrad years to keep them engaged,” says Pan. 

UNLV’s federal recognition as a diverse campus also allows access to the Minority Serving Institution Partnership Program (MSIPP), a national program aimed at improving education and research at minority-serving institutions. “Utilizing this partnership program will help us to expose students to more advanced federal research facilities, train a large number of diverse students, and prepare them for their professional careers,” says Feng.

Collaboration and Building Connections         

Currently, Feng is the only environmental chemist on the UNLV faculty, so he says connecting with other people in the field will be an important part of enhancing student understanding. 

Workforce development will not only come from students having access to faculty with close relationships at various facilities and other universities, but also from visits to key national laboratories including Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Illinois, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington. Closer to home, project leaders also plan to partner with the Nevada National Security Site.

These national facilities offer strong job opportunities once students have completed their education, so visiting the labs in person and building relationships with scientists is an important step to helping students reach their career goals down the road. 

As an example, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory employs over 6,000 scientists, engineers, and staff with an annual spending of $1.5 billion. Seeing this facility up close will give students a more tangible understanding of the scale of these facilities and the types of careers that might be available to them. 

“All of these facilities offer career opportunities for our students. We plan to build on these connections and recommend our students for internships as they become available,” says Feng. “Internships will allow students to gain experience prior to applying for a permanent role to make sure it will be a good fit for them.”

Additionally, project leaders have already lined up guest speakers from facilities and agencies such as the U.S. Department of Energy. 

“The unique aspect of this program is the connection we are creating between the classroom and real-life research for these students,” says Pan. “The structure of the program will lead to hands-on experience for students to get the training they need to be valuable members of the workforce.”