Mariah Doughman (Chemistry)

Mariah Doughman (Chemistry)

Mariah Doughman received her Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry at St. Norbert College in May 2018. She is now a fourth-year graduate student of the Environmental Chemistry Ph.D. program at Florida International University working under the mentorship of Professor Kevin O’Shea. She is also a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Fellow working under the mentorship of Dr. Yelena Katsenovich at FIU’s Applied Research Center where she is conducting research to evaluate competing attenuation processes for mobile contaminants in Hanford sediments. More specifically, she is interested in understanding the impact comingled contaminants have on the fate of hexavalent uranium [U(VI)] in the vadose zone at the Hanford Site in Washington State. This research effort will provide the technical basis for monitored natural attenuation at the site, which will be implemented once active remediation is complete. She is also investigating cycoldextrin:fluorophore-based systems as a low cost method for the detection of legacy and emerging perfluoroalkyl substances. Mariah is trained on the following instrumentation techniques: fluorescence spectroscopy, ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), ion chromatography (IC), inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and X-ray diffraction (XRD).