Aug 28 2013
NJIT Professor Michel Boufadel has been appointed a member of a National Research Council (of the National Academies) committee on the Effective Daily Recovery Capacity. The appointment is through Nov. 14, 2013. The task includes providing guidelines on the best techniques for skimming oil off the ocean surface following spills. Such guidelines are important for preparedness of regions regarding oil spills.
Boufadel has been a notable voice in the investigation of the Exxon Valdez oil spill and BP’s Deep Water Horizon (DWH) blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. Not only is he teaching in NJIT’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, but he is also director of the NJIT Center for Natural Resources Development and Protection.
Boufadel is an expert in the field of oil spill research and currently serves on the National Research Committee studying the DWH Blowout. A Professional Engineer and Professional Hydrologist (accredited by the American Institute of Hydrology), Boufadel is a familiar face at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) where he currently serves on the EPA Science Advisory Board for natural gas extraction from shale formations.
Boufadel’s projects include floodplain delineation for FEMA and evaluating contamination of urban streams by hazardous contaminants. He was involved in the response to the DWH blowout and has received funding from the Unified Command to evaluate oil biodegradation in the Gulf of Mexico beaches following the blowout. The findings of that project can be found in the Report of the Operation Science Advisory Team, which he co-authored. He was the report’s only academic.
Boufadel has more than 80 refereed articles in publications such as Nature, Geosciences, Environmental Science and Technology, and the Marine Pollution Bulletin. He also has more than 30 publications in oil spill conference proceedings including the International Oil Spill Conference and the Arctic and Marine Oil Spill Conference.
Source: http://www.njit.edu/