Bio
Peijia Ku is an Environmental Scientist in the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health group at the Environmental Sciences Division at ORNL, focusing on ecotoxicology and biogeochemistry. She obtained a Ph.D. in Environmental Health Sciences from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) in 2020, an MS in Environmental Science from Jinan University (Guangzhou, China) in 2015, and a BS in Environmental Engineering from Dalian University of Technology (Dalian, China) in 2012. She has obtained training and experience in environmental engineering and sciences, especially in ecotoxicology and biogeochemistry, from molecular to ecosystem scale. She joined ORNL in 2020 and her research interests include but are not limited to, biogeochemical, hydrological, and microbiological processes mediating environmental contaminants (i.e., mercury), mechanisms controlling the methylation and demethylation of mercury, and the integrated controls on the bioaccumulation of methylmercury in the aquatic and terrestrial food webs. Peijia is currently working on the development and evaluation of mercury remediation technologies in the aquatic environment, and risk assessment of environmental stressors to aquatic ecosystems.