Rebekah Gray received her bachelor’s degree in chemistry and biology from Carlow University in Pittsburgh, PA in 2015. She was then employed as a chemist at Environmental Services Lab for a year before pursuing her Ph.D. in analytical chemistry at the Ohio State University under the guidance of Susan Olesik. Rebekah’s graduate research focused on assessing the environmental friendliness of supercritical fluid chromatography and developing carbon materials for use in separation science. Following graduate school, Rebekah was a postdoctoral scholar at the College of Wooster with Jennifer Faust. Her research focus shifted to environmental chemistry where she analyzed precipitation for pesticides using high-resolution mass spectrometry. She was also fortunate enough to work with several undergraduate researchers on this work which is published in Atmospheric Environment. Rebekah arrived at Goucher College in 2023 to continue teaching General Chemistry, Analytical Chemistry, and Environmental Chemistry. She is also excited to engage students in environmental chemistry research focusing on microplastic interactions in soil.
Rebekah currently lives in Cockeysville, MD with her husband, Matt. When Rebekah is not on campus, she loves to explore National Parks and hike locally, sample local restaurants and breweries, and crochet.
The Gray lab studies interactions between microplastics and other organic contaminants in soil matrices to gain insights into the hazards associated with plastic pollution. Through this work, students gain expertise in high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC/MS), gas chromatography (GC), and infrared spectroscopy (IR).
Kim, Y., Pike, K.A., Gray, R., Sprankle, J.W., Faust, J.A., Edmiston, P. L., Non-targeted identification and semi-quantitation
of emerging per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in US Rainwater, EnvironmentalScience: Processes and Impacts, 2023, DOI: 10.1039/D2EM00349J.
*Selected as ESPI Best Paper of 2022 Runner-Up
Gray, R., Painter, E., Sprankle, J. W., Crawford, A. D., Morrison, J. J., Frazier, M., Faust, J. A., Suspect screening for pesticides in precipitation using liquid chromatography high-resolution mass spectrometry, Atmospheric Environment, 2022, DOI: 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2022.119389
Fitch, B. N., Gray, R., Beres, M., Hicks, M. B., Farrell, W., Aurigemma, C., Olesik, S. V., Life cycle analysis and sustainability comparison of reversed phase high performance liquid chromatography and carbon dioxide-containing chromatography of small molecule pharmaceuticals, Green Chemistry, 2022, 24, 4516-4532, DOI: 10.1039/D1GC03750A
Gray, R., Fitch, B.N., Aurigemma, C., Hicks, M.B., Beres, M., Farrell, W., Olesik, S. V., Improving th environmental hazard scores metric for solvent mixtures containing carbon dioxide for chromatographic separations, Green Chemistry, 2022, 24, 4504-4515, DOI: 10.1039/D1GC03749H