On April 10, the Prairie Research Institute honored employees for their outstanding achievements and excellent work. ISTC Lee Green was awared the Distinguished Research Specialist/Technician Award.
In his nomination letter for chemist Lee Green, her former supervisor Chris Lehmann emphasized her "work ethic, dedication, and spirit" and "can do attittude."
"She willingly takes on new duties, especially embracing new projects and their challenges," he wrote. "This energetic pursuit of new research programs is critical to the future of PRI."
Green joined the Illinois State Water Survey as an analytical chemist in 2007 and was promoted to lab manager in 2012. Lehmann pointed out that under Green's management the lab processed a record number of over 18,000 samples in 2016, representing almost 62,000 individual analyses, and that all deliverables were provided on time and within stringent quality control specifications. In summer 2017, the analytical team she managed received special commendations from program sponsors.
In 2018, Green transferred to the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center, where she now studies the adsorption of legacy pollutants and microbiological assemblages on environmental microplastics. Her supervisor at ISTC, John Scott, praised her for quickly picking up new skills in the year she's been with his team, including learning how to extract, isolate, and purify organics from environmental samples, gas chromatography, and mass spectrometry.