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Hometown: Sacramento, CA Undergrad University: UC Santa Cruz Undergraduate Major: Chemistry and Biochemistry Graduate Advisor: Clare Grey Graduate Program: Chemistry PhD Year Entered Program: 2006-2007 email: kamorgan at ic.sunysb.edu

Research Interests: The Mineral's Side of the Story

My research focuses on the offending agents of the health issues raised by metal, mineral and metalliod exposure in humans and animals. Understanding the behavior of metal pollutants as they occur in the environment is essential, as the bioavailability of a metal determines its toxicity. Previous studies have indicated that soils have significant influence in this respect. Metal cations have been found to bind on the surface and within the structure of minerals that compose soils.
Currently I am using representative minerals commonly found in soils to model how metal cations are bound to the mineral surface and within the mineral structure. Understanding the nature of the binding of the metal to the mineral is key to understanding how much the bioavailability is controlled by soils. I began my investigation with birnessite, a layered manganese oxide, as a model mineral and sodium as a model metal cation. Currently I am working on exchanging lead into birnessite and observing how it is bound on and within this mineral via solid state MAS NMR, XRD and XAS.