On Tuesday, March 8th, as part of the Syracuse University EMPOWER program’s Water-Energy Nexus Seminar, Dr. Emily Elliott visited campus. Dr. Elliot is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Geology and Planetary Science at the University of Pittsburgh. She received her B.S. from the University of Virginia in Environmental Science, and her M.S and Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in Geography and Environmental Engineering. Dr. Elliot began to examine the stratification of nitrogen isotopes in the Earth’s water, air, and land while a Ph.D. Student at Johns Hopkins University, and has continued to provide vital contributions to the field of reactive nitrogen as both a postdoctoral associate with the U.S. Geological Survey, Water Resources Division, and as an Associate Professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Students and faculty from both the Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Earth Sciences Departments had opportunities to meet with Dr. Elliott while she was on campus
Dr. Elliott discussed her recent work regarding the links between anthropogenic activities and distributions of reactive nitrogen in atmospheric, terrestrial and hydrologic systems using stable isotope biogeochemistry entitled “What Goes Up, Must Come Down: An Isotopic Perspective on Reactive Nitrogen Emissions and Deposition.” During the seminar, Dr. Elliott explained how nitrogen isotopes can be used to determine the emission sources of NOx deposition. Despite atmospheric processes complicating analysis, Dr. Elliott shared that deposition in remote regions appears to be mostly from coal burning, while NOx emitted from vehicles are deposited on a local scale.
News article submitted by Kristina Gutchess, Geoff Millard, and Ting Wang