Elsie Sunderland
Harvard University
Biography
Elsie Sunderland is the Fred Kavli Professor of Environmental Chemistry and Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University, where she leads the Biogeochemistry of Global Contaminants Research Group. Her research aims to better understand how chemical pollutants interact with natural ecosystems and affect life.
Her group’s work quantitatively analyses the entire exposure pathway for pollutants to identify key processes that have a large influence on their accumulation in living organisms. Her group’s research approach combines environmental measurements with statistical and mechanistic models to project chemical levels over space and time.
Over the past 20 years, Professor Sunderland has collaborated extensively with indigenous groups, NGOs, and governmental organizations. Her work has informed strategies for managing risks associated with environmental chemical exposures from energy infrastructure such as coal-fired power plants and hydroelectric dams, and federal and international regulatory efforts for mercury and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
She has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles and is a Clarivate Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher. She received a B.Sc. in Environmental Science from McGill University in 1997 and a PhD in Environmental Toxicology from Simon Fraser University in 2003. She worked at the headquarters for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, DC on regulatory impact assessments and the use of environmental models to inform regulatory decisions before joining the Harvard faculty in 2010.
RSC affiliations
Editor-in-Chief, Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts