Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs & Provost
Deborah Swackhamer
Deborah L. Swackhamer is Interim Director of the University of Minnesota’s new Institute on the Environment, and a Professor of Environmental Chemistry in the Division of Environmental Health Sciences in the School of Public Health. She is on leave from her position as Co-Director of the Water Resources Center. She received a BA in Chemistry from Grinnell College (Grinnell, IA) and a MS and PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Water Chemistry and Limnology & Oceanography, respectively. After two years post-doctoral research in Chemistry and Public & Environmental Affairs at Indiana University, she joined the Minnesota faculty in 1987. She has studied the processes affecting the behavior and fate of persistent toxic chemicals such as PCBs, dioxins, and pesticides in the Great Lakes for the past 20 years, including sediment accumulation, source determinations, water column processes, and foodweb bioaccumulation. Her current research includes projects investigating the bioaccumulation, exposure and impacts of environmental estrogenic chemicals.
Dr. Swackhamer currently serves on the Science Advisory Board and the Board of Scientific Councilors of the US Environmental Protection Agency, and the Science Advisory Board of the International Joint Commission of the US and Canada. She also serves on the Advisory Board for the National Undersea Research Program of NOAA for the North Atlantic-Great Lakes region. Dr. Swackhamer was appointed by Governor Pawlenty to serve on the Minnesota Clean Water Council. Dr. Swackhamer is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for the journal Environmental Science & Technology and chairs the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Environmental Monitoring. She was recently named a Fellow in the Royal Society of Chemistry in the UK. Dr. Swackhamer received the Harvey G. Rogers Award from the Minnesota Public Health Association in June, 2007.