The Westminster College Department of Chemistry will host Dr. Daniel Bain for the 17th annual Ken and Nancy Long Chemistry Lecture at 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 22, in the Dietz Sullivan Lecture Hall in Westminster’s Hoyt Science Center.

In his lecture, “Fate and Transport of Oil and Gas Waste in Southern Pennsylvania,” Bain, associate professor of geology and environmental science at the University of Pittsburgh, will discuss the interactions of chemical pollutants with environmental systems and why they are often poorly characterized. Bain will outline some of the key ambiguities in environmental chemical interactions, citing examples from the environmental geochemical management of unconventional oil and gas waste.

“While it’s not necessarily a straight line from a ‘traditional’ chemistry background to environmental geochemistry, clarification of this fundamental component of earth systems can help address crucial human challenges ranging from climate change to improving human health,” he said.

Bain earned his Ph.D. and master’s from Johns Hopkins University and his undergraduate from Macalester College. He was a National Research Council Post-Doctoral Fellow at the U.S. Geological Survey before joining the University of Pittsburgh in 2007. Bain is currently one of the University of Pittsburgh’s Faculty Fellows in Sustainability.

Presented by Westminster’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, the lecture series is funded by Dr. Ken Long, Westminster professor of chemistry emeritus, and his wife, Nancy, and invites chemists to speak with students on campus.

The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Katie Miller at 724-946-7404 or millerke@westminster.edu.

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