Andrew Heyes

A little about myself and my work. It was during my education at McGill University in Montreal, Canada that I was exposed to studying biogeochemical cycles at landscape scales. This experience led me to conduct research in a wide variety of ecosystems, including the Canadian Arctic, subarctic and at the Experimental Lakes Area in Northwestern Ontario. In 1996, I joined a team of US researchers studying the cycling of mercury cycling in the Florida Everglades.  Since arriving at CBL I have continued studying mercury cycling through projects conducted at the ELA (METALLICUS ), in US coastal estuaries, and in Maryland’s lakes and streams. In recent years, largely via graduate student studies, I have studied the impact of contaminants, such as mercury and selenium, on aquatic organisms. In 2009 I became the director of the Organics Analytical Laboratory, which performs analysis of variety of organic contaminants. In this role I first began examining legacy organic contaminants such as PCBs and PAHs in and around the Chesapeake Bay.  In recent years my interest has been directed more toward detecting and studying the behavior of newly identified organic compounds associated with human activity such as Disinfection Byproducts (DBP) and Personal Care Products (PCP). Having facilities to examine both organic and inorganic compounds, I can now study metal-organic ligand complexation, and how complexation of trace elements with natural organic matter impacts transport and bioavailability.