Ludmilla Aristilde, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Riley Robb
la31@cornell.edu
607-255-
Biography
While growing up in Haiti, Aristilde's interest in environmental issues was sparked by witnessing the impacts of deforestation on the natural environment and the links between water pollution and health during an outbreak of cholera. During her undergraduate years here at Cornell, she did a summer research internship in India working on the impacts of the use of wastewater in agriculture on groundwater quality, an experience that urged her to pursue further studies to understand how to tackle problems at the interface of environmental chemistry and environmental health. During her graduate studies at the University of California-Berkeley, she worked on the mechanisms underlying the environmental chemistry and toxicology of antibiotics, which are extensively used in human and veterinary medicine and are subsequently discharged into rivers from wastewater or applied on agricultural soils via waste sludge or manure. After obtaining her PhD, she went to Grenoble, France as a Fulbright scholar to learn different spectroscopic techniques to investigate how polar organic contaminants such as pharmaceuticals can be trapped within mineral interlayers. Prior to her return to Cornell in the Fall of 2012, she spends three years as a NSF postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University working first on the ecosystem dynamics of marine phytoplankton and then on the utilization of organic substrates by soil anaerobic bacteria. Her research group at Cornell will focus on mechanistic investigations of the environmental fate and effects of emerging organic contaminants, natural toxins, and other biologically-active organic molecules.
Research: Molecular Environmental Chemodynamics of Organic Molecules
The general goal of our research is to contribute to a mechanistic understanding of the "why" and "how" of the environmental behavior of biologically-active organic molecules with implications for ecosystem health. We are particularly interested in the fate and effects of emerging contaminants including pharmaceuticals, antibiotics, hormones, and natural toxins in soils and surface waters and in the reactivity and fate of important macromolecules including proteins, enzymes, and genetic fragments in soils. Our approach is to employ a combination of experimental and computational techniques to elucidate the mechanisms of the chemical and biochemical interactions relevant to the environmental chemistry and toxicology of these molecules. The long-term goal of our research is to contribute to the evaluation of the potential risk or implications of these bioactive molecules for environmental fate and exposure, ecosystem health, and ecotoxicology.
Current Research Interests:
§ Structure and reactivity in the mechanisms of adsorption of pharmaceuticals on clay minerals
§ Molecular targets of toxicity of emerging organic contaminants in photosynthetic organisms
§ Probing the biochemical responses of soil bacteria to antibiotics and hormones
§ Dynamics of the fate of genetic fragments in soils
§ Structure and reactivity of enzymes bound to natural particles in soils
§ Dynamics and reactivity of natural organic matter particles
Current positions (for Fall 2012 and after):
Looking for motivated M.S./Ph.D. students and postdoctoral researchers to join the lab. For inquiries about positions and general questions, please contact ludmilla at princeton dot edu. Please provide a copy of your resume/CV and describe in a few paragraphs your research interests, why you want to join our group, your academic background and research training.
Graduate students: For admission policies and applications, please visit: http://bee.cornell.edu/cals/bee/degree-programs/graduate/degrees/index.cfm
Looking for applicants with interests in the environmental chemistry or environmental toxicology of organics. Examples of our research interests are listed above.
Postdocs: (1) Expertise in X-ray Diffraction. Additional knowledge of and experience with solid-state NMR are desirable (one opening)
(2) Expertise in liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry based methods and metabolite profiling. Additional knowledge of and experience with liquid-state NMR are desirable. (one opening).
(3) Expertise in the molecular simulations (Monte Carlo approach, molecular dynamics, quantum mechanics) of chemical interactions in aqueous geochemistry (metal-mineral or organo-mineral complexes) or biological chemistry (protein-ligand or protein-protein interactions). (one opening)
Selected Publications:
Aristilde, L., Marichal, C., Miéhé-Brendlé, J., Lanson B., and Charlet L. (2010). Interactions of oxytetracycline with a smectite clay: A spectroscopic study with molecular simulations. Environ. Sci. Technol. 44, 7839-7845.
Aristilde L., Melis A., Sposito G. (2010). Inhibition of photosynthesis by a fluoroquinolone antibiotic. Environ. Sci. Technol. 44, 1451-1457.
Aristilde L., Sposito G. (2010). Binding of ciprofloxacin by humic substances: A molecular dynamics study. Environ. Tox. Chem 29, 90-98.
Aristilde L., Sposito, G. (2008). Molecular modeling of metal complexation by a fluoroquinolone antibiotic. Environ. Tox. Chem. 27, 103-109
Professional CV
Academic Training
§ PhD, University of California-Berkeley, Molecular Toxicology, 2008
§ MS, University of California-Berkeley, Environmental Engineering, 2004
§ BS, Science of Earth Systems, Cornell University, 2003
§ BFA, Fine Arts, Cornell University, 2003
Specialization: Soil Surface Chemistry, Aquatic Chemistry, Molecular Ecotoxicology, Biochemical Targets of Contaminants, Contaminant Reaction and Transport Processes, Aqueous geochemistry, Biogeochemistry.
Awards
National Science Foundation Minority Postdoctoral Fellowship (2009—2012)
Fulbright Scholarship (Grenoble, France) (2008—2009)
M.J. Vlamis Award from the College of Natural Resources Dean's Office of Instruction and Student Affairs Award Committee at UC-Berkley (2008)
Switzer Environmental Fellowship (2007-2008)
University of California-Berkeley Graduate Opportunity Fellowship (2003—2008)
Gates Millennium scholarship (2000—2008)
New York State Merit Scholarship (1998—2003)
Shell Environmental Fellowship (Project in the Amazonian watershed in Peru) (2002)
Brown and Caldwell Eckenfelder Environmental Scholarship (2002)
Engineers for a Sustainable World Research Grant (Project in Hyderabad, India) (2002)
United Federation of Teachers Scholarship (1998—2002)
Research Training
NSF Postdoctoral Research, 2010-2012,Institute of Integrative Genomics, Princeton University
Metabolomics in the Catabolism of Hemicellulosic Substrates by Clostridia Soil Bacteria, Adviser: Joshua D. Rabinowitz
NSF Postdoctoral Research, 2009-2010,Department of Geosciences, Princeton University
Chemical Thermodynamics and Biochemical Controls in Metal Exchange and Uptake by Marine Phytoplankton. Adviser: François M. M. Morel
Fulbright Scholarship, 2008-2009,Environmental Geochemistry Group, Université de Grenoble, Grenoble, France. Structure and Dynamics in the Binding of Tetracycline Antibiotics to-Clays. Adviser: Laurent Charlet
Ph.D. Research, 2004-2008,Molecular Toxicology Graduate Group, University of California-Berkeley. Mechanisms of Environmental Chemodynamics of Fluoroquinolone Antibiotics. Adviser: Garrison Sposito
M.S. Research, 2003-2004,Environmental Engineering, University of California-Berkeley.
Sequestration of Enzymes and Amino Acids in Clay Interlayers." Adviser: Garrison Sposito
International Research Internship,2002,International Water Management Institute, Hyderabad, India. Impacts of Urban Wastewater Use in Agriculture on Rural Groundwater Quality.
Undergraduate Honors Research, 2000-2002,Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Cornell University.
Modeling Hydrological Parameters at the Landfill site in Norman, Oklahoma. Adviser:Lawrence M. Cathles III
Professional Affiliation
§ American Association for the Advancement of Science
§ American Chemical Society
§ American Geophysical Union
§ Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry
§ Society of Women Engineers
§ Engineers for a Sustainable World
Language skills: French; Haitian-Creole; Brazilian portuguese; Spanish.