Michael Bentel, Chemical & Environmental Engineering

Michael Bentel was born in Chicago, Illinois where he obtained his B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Currently pursuing his doctorate degree from the University of California, Riverside in the Chemical & Environmental Engineering department under the supervision of Dr. Jinyong Liu, he is also a research fellow for the National Science Foundation’s WaterSENSE IGERT. The focus of his research is largely based on developing new water remediation technologies for treating perfluoroalkyl substances in the environment. Upon completion of his PhD, Mike plans to pursue a career in developing advanced water treatment technologies.

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Jinyong Liu

Scott Coffin, Environmental Science

Scott Coffin's research has focused on endocrine-disrupting chemicals in water and their interactions with humans and the ecosystem. To further elucidate the potential harm of plastics in the marine ecosystem, Scott, in collaboration with IGERT fellows, characterized the estrogenic activity of compounds that leach from plastic using a combination of techniques including, analytical chemistry, in vitro bioassays and fish biology. Using similar techniques, Scott and other IGERT fellows have worked together to develop advanced water treatment techniques in order to eliminate endocrine-disrupting chemicals from re-used water in Orange County.

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Daniel Schlenk

Stacia Dudley, Environmental Science

Stacia Dudley graduated Summa Cum Laude from Florida State University with a major in biology and a minor in chemistry. Currently, Stacia is an environmental toxicology Ph.D. candidate and member of the Jay Gan research group studying the uptake, transformation, and accumulation of contaminants of emerging concern in agroecosystems.

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Jay Gan

Daniel Harmon, Psychology

Daniel Harmon is interested in examining how people learn scientific information in the world around them, the sociocultural and personal factors that influence that learning, and people's motivations for adopting environmentally sustainable attitudes and behaviors. His current research investigates how children develop the skills to understand scientific issues (e.g., climate change) and convey that information to adults, as well as what messages most effectively motivate people to use water in more sustainable ways.

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Mary Gauvain

Kyle Harp-Rushing, Anthropology

Kyle Harp-Rushing is interested in the anthropology of open science movements. He explores how non-commercial groups develop digital and cultural infrastructure designed to change research practices, and increase public consumption of experimental research.

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Juliet McMullin

Holly Mayton, Chemical and Environmental Engineering

Holly Mayton (@hollindaze) is a Ph.D. candidate in Chemical and Environmental Engineering with a Designated Emphasis in Public Policy at the University of California, Riverside where she researches the environmental fate and transport of foodborne pathogens and engineered nanomaterials. She has also been a water data policy researcher for the California Council on Science and Technology, a Research and Innovation Fellow at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture in Hanoi, Vietnam, and has served on several California state advisory committees on environmental science and public outreach for the Salton Sea. Holly is broadly passionate about connecting food and water science to policy and advocacy outcomes, from the local to the international level.

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Sharon Walker

Todd Luce, History

Todd Luce is a PhD candidate in the History Dept. at the University of California Riverside with an emphasis on Environmental History and the History of the American West. For the past several years, his research has focused on the history of Southern California’s Salton Sea, a body of water inextricably tied to the Colorado River and deeply imperiled by policy decisions made over the past twenty years. In addition to writing his dissertation, Todd also consults for the National Park Service and is currently writing a historical research study on homesteading and land use at Joshua Tree National Park. In 2017, he was awarded an IGERT (Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship) Fellowship at UCR and has since worked with graduate students from multiple disciplines on a variety of water related issues at the local and regional level.

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Catherine Gudi

Samuel Patton, Environmental Toxicology

Samuel Patton is an environmental toxicologist who is focused on the use of UV-based advanced oxidation processes in water reuse scenarios. Samuel focuses on radical reaction pathways for organic contaminant removal and transformation.

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Haizhou Liu

Parisa Parsafar, Psychology

Parisa Parsafar is a doctoral candidate in Developmental Psychology at UC Riverside and is also pursuing a Designated Emphasis in Public Policy. Her work uses a multi-method approach to understand how children’s experiences and management of negative emotions relate to differences in cognitive processes like attention, memory, and learning. Emotions serve as signals that communicate important information about current experiences. But, when they are inaccurate, exaggerated, or regulated poorly, they can lead people to engage in maladaptive thoughts and behaviors that carry environmental and public health consequences. As part of her research Parisa is investigating how differences in early experiences of disgust and fear predict developing water contamination beliefs and water consumption behaviors among children from Riverside County families.

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Elizabeth L. Davis

Parsa Saffarinia, Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology (EEOB)

Parsa Saffarinia is generally interested in how water flow disturbance structures the biological communities inhabiting riverine systems. Water flow disturbance can take the form of climate change (droughts, floods, variability) or directly human-induced (flow shutdowns, diversions, municipal use, etc).

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Kurt Anderson

Khadeejah Sani, Chemical and Environmental Engineering

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Mark Matsumoto'

Carolyn Schutten, History

Carolyn Schutten is a Ph.D. Candidate at University of California Riverside, currently completing her dissertation, "Flow and Obstruction: Tijuana River and Environmental Activism at the U.S.- Mexico Border, 1970s-2010s." Carolyn holds a master's degree in Urban and Regional Planning with an emphasis in environmental planning and a master's degree in public history. Carolyn was Resident Scholar at the University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States, and she was named a Visiting Fellow at the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at the UCSD School of Global Policy and Strategy. A UCR Chancellor’s Distinguished Fellow, Carolyn has received numerous awards from University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States, Blum Initiative on Global and Regional Poverty, University of California Humanities Research Institute, UC California Studies Consortium, University of Los Angeles, and UCR Center for Ideas and Society Research Grant, among others. Carolyn has been an IGERT Water SENSE Project Associate, conducting public outreach and collaborating with UCR Science and Technology, IGERT fellows, and faculty to produce a multidisciplinary paper. As a public historian, Carolyn has competently juggled professionalization in tandem with research, working with scientists, local government, non-profits, and artists to bring water issues into the public eye. Carolyn has programmed numerous public-facing exhibitions, projects, and programs, including a multidisciplinary project at the Santa Ana River, There is a River Here, and a public engagement exhibition about the Los Angeles River in Long Beach, Flow and Obstruction: process.dialogue.inquiry. Carolyn has presented her research at Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West, The Getty Center, the National Council for Public History Conference, the American Society of Environmental Historians Conference, the American Planning Association, and the inaugural UCR Water Symposium. Carolyn is a border water scholar who works across disciplines to make the science and policy of water legible to the general public. Her research addresses major research themes identified by Water SENSE IGERT, including international water policy and management of the Tijuana River, sewage and pollutant contamination, the history of flood control, water treatment, site remediation, and the exploration of binational solutions for complex water problems. Her project is a study of environmental activism in the San Diego-Tijuana border area that explores flows of power around the shaping, management, and uses of the Tijuana River amidst shifting environmental, economic, and immigration policies.

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Catherine Gudis

Kendra Webber, Political Science

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Georgia Warnke