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Assistant Professor of Biology Mike McCormick was awarded a $100,000 grant by the Department of Energy to study the use of iron-reducing bacteria to help remediate groundwater contaminated with uranium. The iron-reducing bacteria that are the subject of the study use iron oxides to support cell respiration. In essence, they "breath rust." In carrying out normal life processes these bacteria profoundly affect the geochemistry of the environments where they live often producing a variety of biogenic mineral byproducts.

Assistant Professor of Biology Mike McCormick co-organized and presided over a symposium at the American Chemical Society meeting in Chicago during March. The symposium titled “Abiotic and Biotic Factors Affecting Contaminant Fate at Iron Oxide Surfaces,” was organized in collaboration with Dr. Ed O’Loughlin of Argonne National Lab and Assistant Professor Dan Giammar at Washington University in St. Louis.