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Susan Boehme, Coastal Sediment Specialist

Dr. Boehme is located at the EPA Great Lakes National Program Office in Chicago, Illinois and administratively attached to the University of Illinois, Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences.  She draws upon Great Lakes contaminant research conducted by U.S. EPA and associated IISG partners and transfers these scientific discoveries to coastal communities and resource managers.

EDUCATION

• 1989-1993. North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, Ph.D. Marine Science
  "The carbon isotope biogeochemistry of a methanogenic marine sediment"
• 1985-1989. North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, M.S. Marine Science
  "Seasonal variation in the production of TCO2 in a methane producing sediment"
• 1981-1984. University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, B.S. Geology and Geophysics

RESEARCH EMPHASIS
Contamination of sediments and soils, pollution prevention, industrial ecology, science policy, chemical oceanography, biogeochemistry

OTHER/PRINCIPAL ACTIVITIES

• Great Lakes Legacy Act
• EPA - Pollution Prevention
• Great Lakes Collaboration

ACADEMIC INTERESTS/EXPERTISE
carbon cycling, carbon isotopes, air-sea exchange, biogeochemistry, fish consumption advisories

EXPERIENCE

• Planned, organized and administered small and large meetings of Consortium of Stakeholders for NY/NJ Harbor Project. Worked with business, environmental groups, government agencies, academia and labor to find environmentally sound and economically feasible pollution prevention strategies
• Organized large and small-scale research cruises.
• Oversaw construction and managed day-to-day operations of several laboratories.
• Participated and led numerous scientific cruises studying biogeochemical cycling and water column chemistry in coastal to deep ocean basins worldwide (including cruises for JGOFS and WOCE).
• Worked extensively with landers, free vehicles, microelectrodes, coring devices, sediment traps, flumes, current meters and hydrocasts.

SOCIAL INVOLVMENT

• American Geophysical Union
• American Chemical Society
• International Society of Industrial Ecology

HONORS AND AWARDS

• 2005. US EPA 2005 Environmental Quality Award - Region 2 for Pollution Prevention and Management Strategies for the NY/NJ Harbor
• 2004.  National Pollution Prevention Roundtable's Best Publication Award for "Pollution Prevention and Management Strategies for Mercury in the NY/NJ Harbor"
• 1993.  Dissertations Symposium in Chemical Oceanography XI, Honolulu, HI
• 1993.  Fr. Joseph T. MacNamara Scholarship, Raleigh, NC
• 1987.  Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute Summer Course Scholarship
• 1984. Sea Semester Program Scholarship, Woods Hole, MA

PUBLICATIONS

Dirk de Beer, Frank Wenzhöfer, Timothy G. Ferdelman, Susan E. Boehme, Markus Huettel, Justus E.E. van Beusekom, Michael E. Böttcher, Nicolina Musat, and Nicole Dubilier (2005) Transport and mineralization rates in North Sea sandy intertidal sediments (Sylt-Rømø Basin, Waddensea). Limnology and Oceanography

Alfsen-Norodom, Christine; Susan E. Boehme; Steven Clemants; Melody Corry, Valerie Imbruce; Benjamin D. Lane; Roberta Balstad Miller; Christine Padoch; Marta Panero; Charles M. Peters; Cynthia Rosenzweig; William Solecki; and Daniel Walsh; Managing the Megacity for Global Sustainability; Urban Biosphere and Society – Partnership of Cities, Eds. Alfsen-Norodom, Lane and Corry; Annals of  the New York Academy of Sciences; Volume 1023; 2004; The New York Academy of Sciences, New York, NY, 10021.

Boehme S. and Panero M. (2003) Pollution Prevention and Management Strategies for Cadmium in the New York/New Jersey Harbor. New York Academy of Sciences. 68pp.

de Cerreño Allison L.C., Panero Marta, and Boehme Susan (2002) Pollution Prevention and Management Strategies for Mercury in the New York/New Jersey Harbor. New York Academy of Sciences. 116pp.

Wenzhöfer F., Adler M., Kohls O., Hensen C., Strotmann B., Boehme S. and Schulz H.D. (2001) Calcite Dissolution Driven by Benthic Mineralization in the Deep Sea: In Situ Measurements of Ca+2, pH, pCO2, O2. Geochimica Cosmochimica Acta Vol. 65, 2677-2690.

Boehme S.E., Sabine C.L. and Reimers C.E. (1998) CO2 fluxes from a Coastal Transect: A Time Series Approach. Marine Chemistry Vol. 63, 49-67.

Komada T., Reimers C.E. and Boehme S.E. (1998) Dissolved Inorganic Carbon Profiles and Fluxes Determined using pH and pCO2 microelectrodes. Limnology and Oceanography Vol.43(5), 769-781.

Boehme S.E., Blair N.E. Chanton J.P. and Martens C.S. (1996) A Carbon Isotope Mass Balance for an Anoxic Marine Sediment: Isotopic Signatures of Diagenesis. Geochimica Cosmochimica Acta Vol. 60, 3835-3848.

Blair N.E., Plaia G., Boehme S.E., DeMaster D.J. and Levin L.A. (1994) The Remineralization of Organic Carbon on the North Carolina Continental Slope. Deep-Sea Research Vol. 41, 755-766.

Blair N.E., Boehme S.E. and Carter W.D. (1993) The Carbon Isotope Biogeochemistry of Methane Production in Anoxic Sediments 1. Field Observations. In: The Biogeochemistry of Global Change: Radiative Trace Gases. (ed. R.S. Oremland) Chapman & Hall, NY.

Schaff T., Levin L., Blair N., DeMaster D., Pope R. and Boehme S. (1992) Spatial Heterogeneity of Benthos on the Carolina Continental Slope: Large (100km)-Scale Variation. Marine Ecology Progress Series Vol. 88, 143-160.

Aller R.C., Aller J.Y., Blair N.E., Mackin J.E., Rude P.D. Stupakoff I., Patchineelam S., Boehme S.E. and Knoppers B. (1991) Biogeochemical Processes in Amazon Shelf Sediments. Oceanography Vol. 4, 27-32