Environmental Chemist Helen White joins Haverford's Faculty
Helen White was hired as a tenure-track assistant professor as a result of a national search, and arrived on campus in early August to set up a new environmental chemistry lab and prepare for chemistry and environmental classes she will be teaching during the 2009-2010 academic year.
Helen White is a biogeochemist whose research interests are aimed at understanding the sources, sinks and cycling of organic matter in marine sediments. Helen received an M. Chem in Chemistry from the University of Sussex, U.K. in 2000 and her Ph.D. in Chemical Oceanography in 2006 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Joint program, advised by Drs. Tim Eglinton and Chris Reddy.
As part of her doctoral work, Helen used compound specific radiocarbon and stable carbon analysis of biomarkers to examine the distribution, chemical associations and overall fate of marine, terrestrial and fossil fuel-derived organic matter in marine sediments. In 2007, Helen was awarded a Microbial Science Initiative postdoctoral fellowship from Harvard University. Here, she worked with Dr. Peter Girguis in the department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, to examine how energy can be harnessed from the microbial metabolism of carbon in the marine environment. The focus of this research was to quantify the different groups of microbes that contribute either directly or indirectly to power production in microbial fuel cells as well as understand the different microbial metabolisms that are employed during this process.
Helen enjoys working in the field, collecting samples from rivers, salt marshes and other coastal environments. She has participated in numerous research cruises and field expeditions to collect sediment and mineral samples from continental margins along the east and west coasts of the USA. In August, 2006 she participated in a cruise aboard the R/V Atlantis and dived in the submersible DSV Alvin to examine the chemistry of hydrothermal vents at the Juan de Fuca ridge.
At Haverford, Helen plans to combine her geochemical and microbiological expertise to examine and enhance our understanding of the role that microbes and minerals play in the cycling of natural and anthropogenic carbon compounds in the environment. Hers is the first of three new faculty positions funded in part by the Andrew W. Mellon foundation to support environmental studies at Haverford College, and she will be part of a working group to develop an environmental studies curriculum for Haverford College.