Environmental toxicology is the integration of chemistry and biology to understand how pollutants move through the environment and affect ecological and human health. Our faculty apply cutting-edge techniques in the field and laboratory to understand the life cycle of contaminants from their points of release to where they affect people, wildlife, and ecosystems. The diverse community of researchers in the Environmental Toxicology Department is committed to addressing the complex environmental problems of today and training the next generation of environmental scientists to tackle future challenges.
Dr. Allison Ehrlich investigates fundamental biological mechanisms that link environmental exposures to altered immune function (activation and suppression). Her research group is focused on identifying the reasons and mechanisms why xenobiotics induce opposing immunological outcomes, which have implications for immune-mediated diseases (e.g., type 1 diabetes), allergies, infections, and cancer.
Dr. Christen Grettenberger studies the geochemistry of diverse microbial communities and how they utilize minerals in the environment. Her research uses microbial tools to help remediate acid mine drainage, a phenomenon found widely around the world including in California, and has applications for helping to improve water quality in these environments.
Lab website: christygrettenberger.weebly.com
Dr. Michele La Merrill studies the developmental basis of environmental disease. Her group is particularly interested in understanding susceptibilities to disease that may result from environmental insults during development, from poor diet and ensuing metabolic diseases, and from genetic and epigenetic predispositions.
Lab website: lamerrill.ucdavis.edu
Dr. Tran Nguyen studies gaseous and aerosol chemistry that occurs in a variety of indoor and outdoor applications. Current interests in the Nguyen group include investigating the transformations of chemicals in the atmospheric gas phase or condensed phase (aerosol water, clouds), toxicant formation in electronic cigarette aerosols, toxicant formation in biomass burning aerosols, and developing novel mass spectrometry techniques for trace pollutant analysis.
Lab website: nguyenlab.faculty.ucdavis.edu
Dr. Sascha Nicklisch seeks to understand the molecular mechanisms governing xenobiotic disposition in humans and other organisms. A special focus is on investigating drug, food, herb, biotoxin, and environmental chemical interactions with xenobiotic efflux transporters that are key determinants of small molecule uptake in all organisms. His current research focuses on tracing pesticide movement within the honey bee superorganism and developing high-throughput in vitro screening assays with purified efflux transporters as proxy to predict chemical bioaccumulation.
Lab website: nicklischlab.faculty.ucdavis.edu
Dr. Patricia Oteiza studies the effects of trace mineral deficiencies, and trace mineral toxicities, on early developmental processes. Her group also studies the putative health benefits of flavonoids.
Dr. Christina Pasparakis studies the molecular and physiological mechanisms that allow organisms to cope with environmental stressors, including both anthropogenic and natural stressors. Her research aims to investigate how stressor and toxin exposure in early life stages of local fish and invertebrate species translate to sublethal effects at later life stages.
Lab Website: christinapasparakis.com
Dr. Brett Poulin studies the environmental transformations and toxicologic pathways of trace metal contaminants in man-made and natural environments, with an emphasis on the element mercury. His research aids effective remediation of managed environments (e.g., reservoirs, wetlands) and efforts to decrease the amount of metals humans and wildlife are exposed to.
Lab website: poulinlab.ucdavis.edu
Dr. Robert Rice studies mechanisms of action of toxic and physiological agents affecting keratinocyte growth and differentiation. His group also studies the biochemistry and expression of specific markers in epidermal cells and appendages, and the metabolic activation of toxic agents in keratinocytes.
Dr. Andrew Whitehead studies how genomes integrate cues from, respond to, and are shaped by the external environment. His research group examines genomic responses to stress that occur over physiological timescales (acclimation responses) and over evolutionary timescales (adaptive responses), and is interested in stressors that are natural (temperature, salinity) and of human origin (pollutants, climate change).
Lab website: whiteheadresearch.wordpress.com
Dr. Qi Zhang studies the chemistry and physics of atmospheric condensed phases (i.e., aerosol particles and fog and cloud droplets), with a particular focus in developing methods and technologies to characterize air quality in urban and rural areas.
Lab website: sites.google.com/site/qizhanggroup/