Desirée Plata wants to keep bad chemicals out of your water (she's an environmental chemist)

When Desirée was little, she'd roam around her grandmother's neighborhood in Maine, "kind of eavesdropping on people," she said. She began to notice a troubling pattern: many of the neighbors, and some of her family members, were suffering from odd neurological conditions and cancers. Desirée began to think that something in the air or water must be causing these illnesses. Desirée Plata, PhD, is now an environmental chemist at MIT studying the fate of chemicals that have escaped into the environment. She's trying to improve the world by studying new technologies and materials that also don't harm the environment and human health. Desirée is also director of the MIT Methane Network, which works to reduce levels of the powerful greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, and her biggest contribution so far is a substance called copper zeolite that can suck methane from coal mines and dairy barns. She has formed a company called Moxair to sell the innovation.Follow her work at the MIT Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering on Instagram, X, Bluesky, LinkedInVisit our website: https://socializingwithscientists.com/Contact us with questions or comments: [email protected] us on Bluesky and X: @socwithsciFollow us on Instagram: @socializingwithscientists