STEEP trainee Matt Dunn wins K.C. Donnelly Externship Award to work on passive samplers with Chicago water treatment technology company Cyclopure, Inc.

Matt Dunn is a 2021 awardee of the K.C. Donnelly Externship Award Supplement. The award was established by the Superfund Research Program of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) in memory of K.C. Donnelly, an environmental health researcher and dedicated mentor to students. The externship will fund Matt’s travel to Chicago, where he will work with Matt Notter and Frank Cassou, J.D., in the laboratory of Cyclopure, Inc. Cyclopure is a small business that works on developing affordable solutions to drinking water treatment. During his externship, Matt will have the opportunity to use Cyclopure’s novel sorbent material to improve the design of the passive samplers he is working on for his Ph.D. research. “The insights gained from this externship will allow me to develop an affordable and simple solution to widespread PFAS monitoring in drinking, surface, and groundwater,” said Matt.