- Environmental organic chemistry
- Bioinorganic chemistry
- Mass spectrometry
- Trace metal cycling
Research Page
Research Summary
Boiteau’s research is focused on addressing the growing impact of humans on the environment, which has vastly outpaced our ability to monitor and prevent negative consequences of industrialization, pollution, and climate change. In many cases, solutions are limited by poor understanding of chemical processes that govern the fate and effect of metals, nutrients, and carbon. The Boiteau research group addresses critical knowledge gaps regarding the mechanisms by which plants and microbes control elemental cycles in oceans, rivers, industrial/wastewaters, sediments, and soils by transforming various organic and inorganic chemical species. Much of Boiteau’s work is focused on developing analytical chemical approaches (especially mass spectrometry methods and data processing pipelines) that provide us with new windows into the complex molecular processes that occur in the environment. Leveraging these and other omics tools, the research goal is to develop predictive understanding of how metals and organic nutrients impact food webs, evolutionary adaptations, and environmental/human health.
