Kimberly L. Ogden, Ph.D.
Co-Owner of Ogden Engineering & Associates. Dr. Ogden is a Professor in Chemical & Environmental Engineering at the University of Arizona. Her research interests primarily focus on the remediation of mixtures of organics and heavy metals in water and soil matrices. She collaborates with Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Queens University of Belfast, and SUNY Buffalo as well as a number of industrial partners including Pall Corporation, Motorola, and Los Angeles County Water Treatment.
One of Dr. Ogden's past projects involved the remediation of soil and wastewater contaminated with explosives (RDS, HMS, and TNT) and heavy metals, including barium and lead. Laboratory scale, pilot scale, and field studies were performed to develop and evaluate theoretical models of the degradation kinetics. These models were used to successfully predict biodegradation rates in liquid and slurry reactors.
Dr. Ogden works with the semiconductor industry to determine the feasibility of using bioremediation to both degrade organics such as fluorinated surfactants and bind/remove heavy metals including copper and lead from dilute waste streams. Immobilized reactor systems have been devised, modeled and tested using surrogate and actual waste streams.
A separate effort done in collaboration with the semiconductor industry involves determining how bacteria survive in ultrapure water systems. She has recently determined that bacteria are capable of crystallizing silica and germanium to form a protective environment in which they can survive. This survival mechanism is believed to be unique to the extreme ultrapure water environment, but may have applications for developing biosensors or biochips.
Dr. Ogden was a part of a National Research Council review panel to evaluate the packaging and transportation of radioactive wastes to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlsbad, New Mexico. As part of this panel, Dr. Ogden investigated the long term effects of biodegradation and the subsequent gas generation of cellulosic materials contained in WIPP waste. She was actively involved in evaluating gas generation models and assessing the TRU (transuranic waste) packaging, handling and transportation procedures.