Brief History

After a brief, but enjoyable escapade in the world of professional football, I returned to education in 1999 to read for a BSc in Analytical Chemistry at the University of Plymouth, where I graduated with First Class Honours in 2002. My final year project, under the supervision of Dr C. Anthony Lewis involved the synthesis and subsequent characterisation of selected T-branched alkanes as part of on going research into the creation of an artificial UCM hump. In addition to this I was the recipient of the PS Analytical Prize (2002) for advanced analytical techniques and was also awarded the Glasson Memorial Prize (2002) for Best Performance on the BSc Chemistry Programme.

After a year out I returned in 2003 to undertake a PhD at the University of Plymouth under the supervision of Professor Steve Rowland and Dr C. Anthony Lewis. My PhD research was co-funded by a University Scholarship and AstraZeneca Brixham Environmental Laboratory. The focus of the project was the abiotic fate of pharmaceuticals thought to persist in the environment after water treatment. The research concentrated on the photodegradation of diazepam (Valium®) and its human metabolites; nordiazepam, temazepam and oxazepam in water. Pharmaceuticals were irradiated using a xenon arc lamp and subsequently identified along with a variety of novel photoproducts using HPLC-ESI-MSn. My PhD, awarded in January 2008, is entitled "The Photodegradation of Diazepam and its Human Metabolites in Water" (PhD abstract).

I recently completed a two year post doctoral research fellowship working alongside Dr C. Anthony Lewis and Professor Steve Rowland on the Foreign & Commonwealth Office project entitled 'Fingerprinting Crude Oils'. A standard operating procedure (SOP) was developed to provide a uniform analytical methodology for the performance and reporting of selected organic geochemical analyses of Nigerian crude oil samples. Representatives from the national oil company were given extensive training in the applications of this analytical methodology.

I have recently joined Professor Steve Rowland's ERC project (OUTREACH) to help investigate toxic, persistent, unresolved and unidentified complex mixtures (UCMs) of organic chemicals present in the global marine environment.

Research Interests

• Environmental organic geochemistry
• Crude oil fingerprinting
• Applications of GC, GC-MS and GCxGC-ToF-MS
• Nature of unresolved complex mixtures of hydrocarbons

Publications

• Johnson R.J., West C.E., Swah A., Folwell B.D., Smith B.E., Rowland, S.J. and Whitby, C. Biotransformation of alkylbranched aromatic alkanoic naphthenic acids by a bacterial isolate with high 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity to Mycobacterium spp. Environmental Microbiology. (In press).
• West, C.E. and Rowland S.J. Kinetics and products of the aqueous phototransformation of diazepam and related human metabolites in the presence and absence of humic acids. Environmental Science & Technology. (Submitted).

• Jones, D., Scarlett, A.G., West, C.E. and Rowland, S.J. (2011) Toxicity of individual naphthenic acids to Vibrio fisheri. Environmental Science & Technology 45, 9776-9782. [doi: 10.1021/es201948j].
• Rowland, S.J., Clough, R., West, C.E., Scarlett, A.G., Jones, D. and Thompson, S. (2011) Synthesis and mass spectrometry of some tri- and tetracyclic naphthenic acids. Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry 25, 2573-2578. [doi: 10.1002/rcm.5153].
• Rowland, S.J., Jones, D., Scarlett, A.G., West, C.E., Liu Pok Hin, Boberek, M., Tonkin, A., Smith, B.E. and Whitby, C. (2011) Synthesis and toxicity of some metabolites of the microbial degradation of synthetic naphthenic acids. Science of the Total Environment 409, 2936-2941. [doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2011.04.012].
• Rowland, S.J., Scarlett, A.G., Jones, D., West, C.E. and Frank, R.A. (2011) Diamonds in the rough: Identification of individual naphthenic acids in oil sands process water. Environmental Science & Technology 45, 3154-3159. [doi: 10.1021/es103721b].
  This paper has been selected by ACS Environmental Science & Technology journal Editor-in-Chief Jerry Schnoor to appear additionally in a special online-only virtual issue entitled "Water-Energy Nexus" aimed at the scientifically literate general public.
• Rowland, S.J., West, C.E., Scarlett, A.G. and Jones, D. (2011) Identification of individual acids in a commercial sample of naphthenic acids from petroleum by two dimensional comprehensive gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry 25, 1741-1751. [doi: 10.1002/rcm.5040].
• Rowland, S.J., West, C.E., Scarlett, A.G., Jones, D., Boberek, M., Pan, L., Ng, M., Kwong, L. and Tonkin, A. (2011) Monocyclic and monoaromatic naphthenic acids: Synthesis & characterisation. Environmental Chemistry Letters 9, 525-533. [doi: 10.1007/s10311-011-0314-6].
• Rowland, S.J., West, C.E., Scarlett, A.G., Jones, D. and Frank, R.A. (2011) Identification of individual tetra- and pentacyclic naphthenic acids in oil sands process water by comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry 25, 1198-1204. [doi: 10.1002/rcm.4977].
• Rowland, S.J., West, C.E., Scarlett, A.G., Jones, D., Frank. R. and Hewitt, L.M. (2011) Steroidal aromatic 'naphthenic acids' in oil sands process-affected water: Structural comparisons with environmental estrogens. Environmental Science & Technology 45, 9806-9815. [doi: 10.1021/es202606d].
• Scarlett, A.G., Clough, R., West, C.E., Lewis, C.A., Booth, A.M. and Rowland, S.J. (2011) Alkylnaphthalenes: Priority pollutants or minor contributors to the poor health of marine mussels?. Environmental Science & Technology 45, 6160-6166. [doi: 10.1021/es201234a].
• West, C.E., Jones, D., Scarlett, A.G. and Rowland, S.J. (2011) Compositional heterogeneity may limit the usefulness of some commercial naphthenic acids for toxicity assays. Science of the Total Environment 409, 4125-4131. [doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2011.05.061].

Presentations

• 22^nd Annual Meeting of the British Organic Geochemical Society, Swansea, U.K., 6-7 July 2011. Oral presentation (colleague): "Using a Model for the Toxicological Assessment of Naphthenic Acids".
• SETAC Europe 21^st Annual Meeting, Milan, Italy, 16-19 May 2011.
  • Poster presentation: "Characterisation of an Oil Contaminated Soil Using GC×GC-ToF-MS".
  • Oral presentation (colleague): "Reported in the Gulf of Mexico Following the Deep Horizon Oil Spill: What Risk do Alkylnaphthalenes Pose?".
  • Oral presentation (colleague): "Who Needs Lab Work? An Investigation into Predictive Ecotoxicological Computer Models and Naphthenic Acids".
• SETAC North America 31^st Annual Meeting, Portland, U.S.A., 7-11 November 2010. Oral presentation (colleague): "Improved Resolution and Identification of Isomeric Naphthenic Acids by GC×GC-MS".
• 21^st Annual Meeting of the British Organic Geochemical Society, Manchester, U.K., 6-7 July 2010. Oral presentation: "Differential Toxicity of Alkylnaphthalenes; Common Oil Pollutants"; Oral presentation (colleague): "Toxicity of Naphthenic Acids".
• 34^th International Symposium on Capilary Chromatography and 7^th GC×GC Symposium, Riva del Garda, Italy, 30 May-4 June 2010.
  • Poster presentation: "Optimisation of GC×GC-ToF-MS for the Separation of Alkylated Naphthalene Isomers and its Application for the Analyses of Tissue Extracts Following Bioaccumulation Studies".
  • Poster presentation (colleague): "Application of GC×GC-ToF-MS for Identification of Alkylated Naphthalenes Within Tissues of Oil-Contaminated Wild Mussels and Comparison with Laboratory Oil-Exposed Mussels".
  • Poster presentation (colleague): "Characterisation of Forgotten Pollutants & Resolving the UCM Using Pegasus 4D CF GC×GC-TOFMS".
  • Poster presentation (colleague): "Use of GC×GC/TOF-MS in the Analysis of Petroleum Hydrocarbons: Advantages of Library-Searchable TOF Mass Spectra Combined with High Chromatographic Resolution".
• SETAC Europe 20^th Annual Meeting, Seville, Spain, 23-27 May 2010. Poster presentation (colleague): "Toxicity of Alkylnaphthalenes: Common Environmental Contaminants".
• 24^th International Meeting on Organic Geochemistry, Bremen, Germany, 6-11 September 2009.
  • Poster presentation: "Forensic Fingerprinting of Nigerian Crude Oils".
  • Poster presentation (colleague): "How to Get the Hump".
• 19^th Annual Meeting of the British Organic Geochemical Society, Newcastle, U.K., 1-2 July 2008. Oral presentation: "CSI Meets Geochemistry: Fingerprinting Stolen Crude Oil".
• 23^rd International Meeting on Organic Geochemistry, Torquay, U.K., 9-14 September 2007. Poster presentation: "Illuminating the Environmental Photodegradation of Valium® and its Human Metabolites".
• 5^th IWA Specialised Conference on Assessment and Control of Micropollutants/Hazardous Substances in Water (MICROPOL & ECOHAZARD 2007), Frankfurt/Main, Germany, 17–20 June 2007. Oral presentation (colleague): "The Environmental Fate of Prozac® and Valium® in Water, Sewage-Treated Soils and Crops".
• 6^th European Meeting on Environmental Chemistry, Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro, 6-10 December 2005. Oral presentation: "Illuminating the Photochemical Fate of Prozac and Valium".
• 17^th Annual Meeting of the British Organic Geochemical Society, Liverpool, U.K., 14-15 July 2005. Oral presentation: "Looking on the Bright Side: The Environmental Fate of Prozac and Valium".
• Royal Society of Chemistry Meeting and Postgraduate Industry Tour, Newcastle, U.K., 18-20 April 2005. Poster presentation: "Shedding Light on the Environmental fate of Prozac and Valium".
• Society of Chemical Industry (SCI) Meeting, Pharmaceuticals in the Environment: Fate, Effects and Regulation, London, U.K., 1 March 2005. Poster presentation: "Shedding Light on the Environmental fate of Prozac and Valium".
• 5^th European Meeting on Environmental Chemistry, Bari, Italy, 15-18 December 2004. Poster presentation: "Shedding Light on the Environmental fate of Prozac and Valium" (awarded best student poster prize).
• 16^th Annual Meeting of the British Organic Geochemical Society, Nottingham, U.K., 14-15 July 2004. Poster presentation: "Cheering up the Environment: The Environmental Fate of Prozac and Valium" (awarded best student poster prize).