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Dr. François Morel
(December, 2002) Dr. François Morel, a National Center for Environmental Research (NCER Science to Achieve Results (STAR) grantee, recently received two scientific honors. This year, he was chosen to be the Chair of the inaugural Gordon Research Conference on Environmental Bio-Inorganic Chemistry, focusing on the burgeoning fields of bio-inorganic and environmental chemistry. He was also selected as a Guggenheim Fellow, an honor awarded to individuals who have already demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts. In order to make their selection, the Guggenheim Foundation consults with distinguished scholars and artists regarding the accomplishments and promise of the applicants and presents this evidence to a Committee of Selection. Dr. Morel was one of 184 people chosen for this honor for 2001-2002.
Dr. Morel has been a STAR grantee since 1999. With EPA funds, this professor of geosciences from Princeton University has focused on chemical reactions that transform mercury into different forms, determining how rapidly it moves in the environment, is bioaccumulated by fish and, ultimately, ingested by humans. The results from Dr. Morel's STAR work on mercury were critical to the design of a major U.S.- Canadian initiative to study the fate of mercury in lakes. The Mercury Experiment To Assess Atmospheric Loading In Canada and the United States or METAALICUS aims to clearly establish the link between atmospheric deposition of mercury and mercury concentrations in fish. Dr. Morel's focus within this initiative was to clarify the role of chemical reactions in the transformation of mercury into different forms at the interface between air and water.
Professor Morel received his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology and joined the Princeton faculty as a professor in the Department of Geosciences in 1994. He has also been the Director of the Princeton Environmental Institute since 1998. Dr. Morel received the Outstanding Paper Award in 1994 from the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors. He has served on government committees, workshops, and panels, including three at the National Research Council, three at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and several workshops at EPA.
Additional information on the STAR program can be found at the National Center for Environmental Research. For additional information, contact Estella Waldman at waldman.estella@epa.gov.