William H. Glaze: A tribute to a 21st century pioneer in environmental science and technology n this special issue, Environmental Science & Technology (ES&T) pays tribute to Dr. William (Bill) H. Glaze, a man of science, knowledge, research, and respect, who served as Editor-in-Chief of the journal from 1988 to 2002. This issue has been coordinated with the excellent technical assistance of the ES&T editorial staff, particularly Dr. Darcy J. Gentleman (managing editor, ACS headquarters), Dr. Barbara Booth (assistant editor, ES&T Iowa office), and Peggy Singer (editorial assistant, University of Oklahoma). Several contributions in this issue stem from a Special Symposium entitled “Environmental Science and Technology: A Tribute to William ‘Bill’ Glaze”, held at the 238th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Washington, DC in August 2009. This was a very special occasion that highlighted the close connection of Bill’s life work, his dedication to science, and how he was a prime motivating force in the evolution of environmental science and technology as a discipline. On this occasion, Dr. Darcy Gentleman, on behalf of the current ES&T Editor Dr. Jerald Schnoor and ACS Publications, presented Bill with a plaque for his outstanding contributions to the journal. The breadth and depth of Bill’s contributions to the discipline are reflected in many topical areas he worked in. These included work on the fate of organic compounds in the environment, the use of ozone and other advanced oxidation techniques for drinking water treatment, and many other studies that can be generalized as sustainable development, sustainable energy, and green chemistry, well before such topics were particularly fashionable. A hint of the scope and impact of Bill’s example is reflected in the 22 papers in this special issue that encompass a range of contributions written by leading scientists, some of whom are Bill’s colleagues, former students or postdoctoral fellows, and close friends. The papers included in this tribute issue can arbitrarily be grouped into five general areas including (1) water treatment, (2) advanced oxidation processes, (3) enhanced biological transformations, (4) advances in molecular environmental science, and (5) environmental aspects of nanoparticles. One of the interesting aspects of Bill’s career as both a scholar and editor was to position ES&T at the intersection of environmental biology and chemistry. Perhaps not an issue of the journal goes by wherein the metabolic fate of some contaminant is not considered in great detail. It is somehow entirely fitting that most of the contributions in this tribute reflect this overriding philosophy.
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2010 American Chemical Society
Published on Web 09/29/2010
The first group of papers by Pressman et al. (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es9039314), Loperfido et al. (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es100164c), Daskalaki et al. (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es9038962), Attene-Ramos et al. (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/ es1000193), Kallio et al. (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es903402c), and Yi et al. (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es100233w) study the health effects of disinfection byproducts, the utility of volunteer water quality data for monitoring purposes, the use of photocatalysts for the degradation of organic and inorganic compounds in wastewater, the genotoxicity of drinking water disinfection byproducts, the fate of an anti-inflammatory drug and its metabolite in fish, and the presence of antibiotics and associated resistance genes in several environmental compartments, respectively. Advanced oxidation of contaminants is the subject of papers by Burns et al. (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es903519m), Bokare and Choi (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es903930h), Antoniou et al. (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es1000243), and Kornaros et al. (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es100564j), that analyze the generation of reactive oxygen species, consider the degradation of aqueous organic pollutants by these oxidants, the interactions of cyanotoxins with sulfate radicals, and the modeling of oxidizing bacteria exposed to transient anoxic/aerobic conditions. The next group of papers, by Tomei et al. (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es903806p), Zhu and Aitken (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es100112a), Zhu et al. (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es100114g), Arias et al. (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es1008664), and Johnson et al. (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/ es100161p), deal with the improvement of bioreactor performance for the removal of substituted phenol contaminants, mechanisms for the enhancement of PAH biodegradation, improvement of chromium phytoremediation by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, and substantive comment on the controls over mercury methylation in sediments. Papers by Callaghan et al. (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es1002023), Chhikara et al. (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es100116t), and Moberly et al. (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es100117f) illustrate the integration of molecular biology with environmental science objectives. This includes contributions on the detection of biomarker genes associated with anaerobic hydrocarbon decay in the environment, the genotoxicity of persistent organic pollutants in plants, and the toxicity of zinc species to microorganisms. October 1, 2010 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 9 7169
The last group of papers, by Ji et al. (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es100417s), Lopez-Moreno et al. (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es903891g), Jin et al. (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es100854g), and Miller et al. (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/ es100247x), focus on the impact on nanoparticles in the environment. Topics include the interaction of TiO2 nanoparticles with proteins of mammals, bacteria, and fungi, the biotransformation and genotoxicity of ZnO and CeO2 nanoparticles in plants, the environmental impact of silver nanoparticles and their antibacterial efficacy, and the impact of TiO2 and ZnO on marine phytoplankton. In addition to these research articles, four Perspectives were written to testify to Bill’s personal legacy in environmental research. They are an interview-biography by Gentleman (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/ es102827r), a profile of Glaze as Editor-in-Chief of ES&T by Suflita (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/ es102573u), a dedicatory piece by Gardea-Torresdey et al. (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es102061z), and a reflection on the personal importance of Bill’s influence in sustainability work by Anastas (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es102815y). It is important to recognize that these papers reflect the early vision of Bill Glaze that environmental sciences and human wellbeing are completely integrated. As a man empowered by this vision, Bill tackled environmental and social health paradigms often overlooked by regulatory agencies. His philosophy is often expressed in his desire to awaken the public to global environmental issues that affect populations worldwide and to recognize that the environmental problems do not respect national borders. For those of us who know Bill, we can say that the arc of Bill’s professional career is just one part of his extraordinary passion for life in general. On behalf of all of his colleagues, we thank Bill for his seminal contributions to the environmental sciences and for being the friend, the mentor, and the gentleman that he is.
Dr. Jorge Gardea-Torresdey is the Dudley Professor of Chemistry and Environmental Science and Engineering at The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). He is currently the Chair of the Department of Chemistry at UTEP. He received his Ph.D. in environmental chemistry from New Mexico State University in 1988. The research interests of Dr. Gardea include applications of spectroscopy techniques in environmental chemistry, phytoremediation, and novel methods for the bioproduction of nanoparticles and study of the fate of nanoparticles in the environment, among others. His current research is funded by the U.S. NIH, DOE, EPA, USDA, and the NSF. He is a coinvestigator
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in the recently funded NSF/EPA “Center for Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology”. He has authored over 300 publications and issued 5 U.S. patents for environmental remediation. Dr. Gardea has graduated 22 Ph.D. students in environmental science and engineering, and 29 students have received their M.Sc. degrees under his mentorship. The scientific contributions of Dr. Gardea have allowed him to receive many honors throughout his professional life. Recently, his research achievements are highlighted in the Lawrence Hall of Science of the University of California Berkeley. He just received the 2009 SACNAS Distinguished Scientist of the Year Award. Dr. Gardea’s career has been highlighted by the most important journals in science and engineering, including the October 28, 2009 issue of ES&T and the December 3, 2009 issue of Nature. He currently serves on the editorial advisory board of ES&T. He was appointed Editor of the Journal of Hazardous Materials in 2007, one of the top journals in the environmental field.
Dr. Suflita joined the University of Oklahoma in 1982 and attained the rank of professor in 1992. He is a George Lynn Cross Research Professor, the MAPCO Professor of Environmental Quality, and the current Director of the Institute for Energy and the Environment. Prior to coming to OU, he spent two years as a research associate at Michigan State University after completing his Ph.D. studies at the Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Suflita is a member of the American Society for Microbiology, the American Academy of Microbiology, the International Society for Microbial Ecology, the American Chemical Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has been an ES&T Associate Editor since 1989. Dr. Suflita’s major research interest is in the metabolic fate of compounds that pollute the environment. He is particularly interested in energy-related contaminants and in the fate of these materials under anaerobic conditions. During his OU career, he has published over 130 peer-reviewed articles. He tries to establish the degradative pathways associated with contaminant compounds, the rates at which they are biotransformed, the ecological boundaries of the metabolism, the types of microorganisms that may be involved, and the biochemical mechanisms associated with the metabolism. His current research centers on biotechnological approaches for energy recovery as well as biodeterioration and biocorrosion concerns in the energy infrastructure. Jorge L. Gardea-Torresdey* and Joseph M. Suflita
[email protected].
