Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
Contact
375-08 John T. Tate Hall
116 Church Street Se
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
I am the David and Therese Pui Professor of Environmental Sustainability, Professor in the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences and the BioTechnology Institute, and Director of the Water Circularity Center at the University of Minnesota. My research is driven by a fundamental question: How can a deeper understanding of environmental processes help us build a more sustainable and resilient world?
I lead interdisciplinary teams that bridge fundamental and applied science to understand the fate of contaminants, nutrients, and critical elements in natural and engineered systems. Our research examines how metals and other pollutants move, transform, and persist in soils, waters, urban environments, and ecosystems, with the goal of advancing more effective approaches to remediation and restoration.
A major focus of our work is understanding how interactions among plants, microbes, minerals, and metals can be harnessed to improve metals remediation, soil and plant health, and critical mineral recovery. We also study water sustainability and circularity, including real-time water quality assessment, forecasting, sensing, data science, and AI for environmental systems and water-intensive industries.
Across these efforts, my group works closely with communities, Tribal partners, industry, and other stakeholders to ensure that our science addresses meaningful environmental challenges and supports practical, sustainable solutions.
Interested in joining our group? Our team includes undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and collaborators with backgrounds in chemistry, biology, Earth and environmental sciences, and related fields.
Learn more: Visit the Santelli Lab website, explore my publications on Google Scholar, or connect with me on LinkedIn.
B.S. University of Wisconsin, Madison, 2000
Ph.D. MIT/WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography, 2007 (Katrina Edwards and Wolfgang Bach)
Postdoctorate Harvard University, 2010 (Colleen Hansel)
Google Scholar
Experts@Minnesota
Recent Research Support
NSF CNH2-L “First We Must Consider Manoomin” (Wild Rice): A Flagship for Co-Creating Socio-Ecological Knowledge to Support Indigenous Resource Sovereignty, 2020 – 2024, PI M. Dockry, $1,500,000
DOE SBR “Interactions between molecular-scale biogeochemical processes and hyporheic exchange for understanding coupled Fe-S-C cycling in iron-rich riparian wetlands”, 2019 – 2023, PI C. Santelli, $600,000
NSF IES “Collaborative research: Banded together: modern water-microbe-mineral feedbacks in the deep Archean lithosphere”, Dec. 2018 – 2023, PI B. Toner, $2,396,666
NSF GG “CAREER: Genome-enabled investigations into the mechanisms and ecological controls on selenium transformations by fungi”, 2018 – 2023, PI Santelli, $855,655
MnDRIVE Environment “Remediation and selective recovery of metals by Mn oxidizing microbes”, 2020-2022 $154,000
Awards
Environmental Initiative Organization, Local Sustainability Award, Honorable Mention, “First We Should Consider Manoomin”, 2020
NSF CAREER Award, 2018 – 2023