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Biography
I grew up in Danbury, CT, and stayed along to East Coast for most of my life. I went to college at a small liberal arts university, Loyola University Maryland, in Baltimore, MD where I received my B.S. in Chemistry and minor in Mathematics. I absolutely adored my department and got involved any way I could by tutoring, TAing, and eventually starting my own research project, where I investigated how glyphosate affected the heavy metal uptake in corn and soybeans. I fell in love with research, especially environmental applications, and decided to follow the rush by attending CSU for my Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry. The Borch lab seemed like the perfect match due to the interdisciplinary nature and environmental focus. Outside of chemistry, I enjoy hiking, camping, snowboarding and baking, which made Colorado the perfect place to move.
While in the Borch Lab, my project focuses on looking at the characterization, treatment, and reuse of oil field wastewater and landfill leachates. Many wastewaters are currently managed in unsustainable or damaging ways to the environment. As water continues to become a high commodity resource, we want to determine the reuse potential wastewater could have on various end users, through various treatment and contaminant characterization techniques. With a collaborative team, crossing numerous fields, we use metabolomics, ultrahigh-resolution mass spectrometry, sorbents and membrane filtration to determine reuse potential for wastewaters.
Project Summary
Wastewater is generated on the scale of billions of gallons every year, and the management techniques have large implications on the environment. The oil and gas industry generates large amounts of saline contaminated wastewater (produced water) that is currently being managed through techniques known to increase seismicity and volatiles into the atmosphere, but through treatment, produced water has the potential for reuse for various end users, like discharge, crop irrigation, and cattle irrigation. My project includes investigating the contaminant profile in produced water before and after treatment to determine the impact the wastewater could have on end users in agriculture and discharging to river/streams.
Additionally, landfills generate contaminated wastewater referred to as landfill leachate. The wastewater contains thousands of micrograms per liter of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). In my project, I investigate surface modified biochar as a treatment technique to remove PFAS from landfill leachate and foam fractionation foamate.
Recent Publications
Marin E Wiltse, Brooke Ballenger, Connor B Stewart, Tamzin A Blewett, Claire Wadler, Holly K Roth, Maelle Coupannec, Huma Tariq, Pei Xu, Yeinner Tarazona, Yanyan Zhang, Ralf Sudowe, James S Rosenblum, Jason C Quinn, Thomas Borch. Oil and gas produced water for cattle, crops, and surface water discharge: Evaluation of chemistry, toxicity and economics. Journal of Hazardous Materials. 2025. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2025.138581
Sierra Jech, Clifford Adamchak, Sean C Stokes, Marin E Wiltse, Jessica Callen, Jacob VanderRoest, Eugene F Kelly, Eve-Lyn S Hinckley, Holly J Stein, Thomas Borch, Noah Fierer. Determination of Soil Contamination at the Wildland-Urban Interface after the 2021 Marshall Fire in Colorado, USA. Environmental Science & Technology. 2024. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.3c08508
Nohyeong Jeong, Marin E Wiltse, Aaron Boyd, Tamzin Blewett, Shinyun Park, Corey Broeckling, Thomas Borch, Tiezheng Tong. Efficacy of nanofiltration and reverse osmosis for the treatment of oil-field produced water intended for beneficial reuse. Acs Es&T Engineering. 2023. doi:10.1021/acsestengg.3c00138.
Aaron Boyd, Ivy Luu, Devang Mehta, Sunil P Myers, Connor B Stewart, Karthik R Shivakumar, Katherine N Snihur, Daniel S Alessi, Maria Camila Rodriguez Gallo, Heather Veilleux, Marin E Wiltse, Thomas Borch, R Glen Uhrig, Tamzin A Blewett. Persisting Effects in Daphnia magna Following an Acute Exposure to Flowback and Produced Waters from the Montney Formation. Environmental Science & Technology. 2023. doi:10.1021/acs.est.2c0744
Malik, H. T.; Bechtold, E. K.; Broeckling, C. D.; Wilkins, M. J.; Buchanan, C.; Wiltse, M. E.; Ippolito, J. A.; Borch, T. Biological and Soil Indicators of Environmental Stress in Cropping Systems Irrigated with Produced Water. ACS EST Water 2025, 5 (8), 4630–4641. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsestwater.5c00351.
