Paul Tratnyek PhD
Professor Environmental Systems & Human HealthBiography
Paul G. Tratnyek is a Professor in the School of Public Health. He teaches courses for the M.P.H. in Environmental Systems and Human Health program, including Environmental and Occupational Health Chemistry (ESHH 530).
Prof. Tratnyek’s expertise is in environmental chemistry, especially the fate, effects and remediation of contaminants. His research areas include treatment processes for removing metals and organic contaminants from water, corrosion of iron and other metals, environmental aspects of nanomaterials, and statistical/computational methods for estimating substance properties that are needed for assessments of environmental fate and risk.
Recent aspects of his research with notable public health implications involve the fate and removal of 1,2,3-trichloropropane, an emerging contaminant in agricultural areas such as the Central Valley of California; the fate and transport of iron oxide nanoparticles in environmental media such as groundwater; and estimation of the fate/effects determining properties of per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
He served as a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Laboratory in Athens, GA during 1988; and as a Research Associate at the Swiss Federal Institute for Water Resources and Water Pollution Control (EAWAG) from 1989 to 1991. In 1991, he joined the faculty of the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering at the Oregon Graduate Institute, which later became the Department of Environmental and Biomolecular Systems and then the Institute of Environmental Health at OHSU.
Additional information on Tratnyek’s research projects, publications, awards, outreach, etc. is available at the Tratnyek Lab Website.
Education, Degrees
B.A., Williams College, 1980
Ph.D., Colorado School of Mines, 1987