Kimberly Parker

Kimberly Parker

Pronouns: She/her/hers
Associate Professor

Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering

  • Phone
    314-935-3461
  • Office
    Brauer Hall, Room 1004
  • Lab location
    Brauer 1035

Education

PhD, Stanford University, 2016
MS, Yale University, 2013
BS, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2011

Research areas

Expertise

Studies the fate of chemical and biological pollutants in soil, air and water

Research

Professor Parker’s research group is advancing the state of the science in engineering and chemistry to address emerging environmental challenges. The group’s ultimate goal is to predict contaminant behavior in environmental systems and to optimize strategies to minimize the risk posed by these contaminants to human and ecosystem health.

Several current research projects are redefining the scope of environmental chemistry and engineering to enable the safe and sustainable use of next-generation biotechnology products. Additional projects investigate complex reaction pathways to develop new approaches to treat contaminants in water.

Biography

Professor Parker earned her PhD at Stanford University, where she was supported by the Abel Wolman Fellowship (American Water Works Association), the Gerald J. Lieberman Fellowship (from Stanford for excellence in teaching) and the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. She was then awarded a Marie Curie Individual Fellowship (European Commission) to conduct research at ETH Zurich (Switzerland) prior to joining the faculty at Washington University.

Her research has been recognized with honors including the Best Science Paper of the Year published in Environmental Science & Technology (2016), the Paul V. Roberts/AEESP Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award (2017) and an NSF CAREER Award (2021).

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Affiliations

Current projects

  • Environmental fate of novel biochemical pesticides produced by genetically modified organisms
  • Herbicide use on emerging herbicide-tolerant crops and their impact on human and environmental health 
  • Oxidative and photochemical reactions of organic pollutants and by-product formation