Alumni:

Jasmine Dufreche

 

Contact Info

      E-mail: jasmine.galjour@gmail.com

      Website: www.louisiana.edu

Biography

I am originally from Ponchatoula, LA, the self-proclaimed Strawberry Capital of the World (hmmm). I earned my undergraduate degree in civil engineering at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in May 2006 and I am proud to be a Ragin’ Cajun alum. While pursuing my degree in Lafayette, I was employed for two years with Lafayette Utilities System as an engineering aide in the Wastewater Division.I
finished my M.S. in Environmental and Water Resources Engineering at UT with Dr. Reible in 2008.

Research

My research involves in-situ remediation of contaminated sediments for control of contamination and erosion through active capping. Active capping is more desirable than the conventional passive capping because instead of simply isolating the contaminants, the cap has the potential to neutralize or stabilize the contaminants. We hope to be able to select a combination of capping materials that best stabilizes the inorganic and organic compounds of interest (metals, PAHs, PCBs) as well as providing resistance to erosion. We are beginning by evaluating the effectiveness of materials such as apatite, organoclays, and biopolymer cross link products on contaminant mobility and bioavailability. My current focus is on determining the partition coefficient for PAH’s in the various cap materials. Future tasks include combining capping materials for determination of the best combination/cap construction, evaluating the model caps for resistance to physical disturbance, generation of mathematical models, and finally deployment of the technology in the field.