Silvina A. Di Pietro
We are very proud of DOE Fellow, Silvina Di Pietro, who successfully passed her Ph.D. defense within the Department of Chemistry at FIU on March 24, 2021. In the Fall of 2015, Silvina joined the DOE-FIU Science & Technology Workforce Development Initiative (DOE Fellows Program) sponsored by the DOE Office of Environmental Management. That same year, she initiated her doctoral studies titled “Uranium Fate and Mineral Transformations upon Remediation with Ammonia (NH3) Gas” at FIU’s Applied Research Center Soil & Groundwater Remediation Group under the supervision of Drs. Hilary Emerson and Yelena Katsenovich. This research project, conducted in collaboration with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), focused on NH3 gas injection as a potential remediation method for uranium stabilization at the Hanford Site’s vadose zone.
Silvina has presented her research findings at numerous conferences, including the Waste Management Symposia, the American Chemical Society, Waste Management Symposia, and eMerge, and has written up scientific discoveries in five peer-reviewed publications (Journal of Environmental Radioactivity, Journal of Environmental Management, and Applied Clay Science). In 2018, Silvina won the Innovations Award in Nuclear R&D Program sponsored by DOE and she also won 3rd place at the DOE Fellows Poster Competition. More recently, Silvina has been selected as the U.S. delegate to the International Younger Chemists Network within the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). IUPAC is considered to be the “United Nations of Chemistry”.
As part of the DOE Fellows program, Silvina completed a total of 3 10-weeks summer internships at DOE facilities across the country. She spent two summers (2016 and 2018) at PNNL working on batch minerals dissolution experiments and she also spent the summer of 2019 working at the Glenn T. Seaborg Institute at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). At LLNL she learned new experimental methods on neptunium (IV) diffusion through bentonite clay.
Silvina has accepted a post doctorate position within the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) under the Defense Program. She will start her career with NNSA this summer.
Congratulations, Dr. Silvina “Silvi” Di Pietro, on all your accomplishments!