Naomi is a staff scientist in the Cosmochemical and Isotopic Signatures Group. She uses MC-ICP-MS to make ultra-trace level measurements of actinides in environmental samples to understand the origin and history of nuclear material.

She received her PhD in Geology at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she studied the isotopic fractionation of redox-sensitive metalloids (Se, Te, and Sb) as proxies of elemental mobility. Naomi started her postdoctoral research at LLNL in 2020, during which she examined plutonium and cesium biogeochemical cycling at Savannah River Site and Nevada National Security Site.

Research Interests: Isotope geochemistry, nuclear safeguards, nuclear forensics, environmental geochemistry, contaminant fate and transport, redox geochemistry, mass spectrometry

PhD, Geology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL

BA, Environmental Science, Barnard College, New York, NY

1. Wasserman, N. L., Merino, N., Coutelot, F., Kaplan, D. I., Powell, B. A., Kersting, A. B., & Zavarin, M. (2023). Sources, seasonal cycling, and fate of plutonium in a seasonally stratified and radiologically contaminated pond. Nature Scientific Reports, 13(1), 11046. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-37276-w

 

2. Basu, A., Schilling, K., Wasserman, N.L., Halliday, A. N., Johnson, T.M. (2022) Te(IV) immobilization by siderite: Reaction kinetics, mechanism, and Te isotopic fractionation. Chemical Geology, 612, 121123. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemgeo.2022.121123

 

3. Dwivedi, P., Schilling,K., Wasserman, N.L, Johnson, T.M. and Pallud, C.E. (2022) Oxidation of dissolved tetravalent selenium by birnessite: Se isotope fractionation and the effects of pH and birnessite structure. Frontiers in Earth Science, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2022.909900

 

4. Wasserman, N.L., Schilling, K., Johnson, T.M., and Pallud, C. (2021) Selenium Isotope Shifts during the Oxidation of Selenide-Bearing Minerals. ACS Earth and Space Chemistry, 5 (5), 1140-1149 DOI: 10.1021/acsearthspacechem.1c00036

 

5. Johnson, T.M., Druhan, J., Basu, A., Jemison, N., Wang, X., Schilling, K., and Wasserman, N. (2021). Development of Cr, Se, U, Sb, Te isotopes as indicators of redox reactions, contaminant fate, and contaminant transport in aqueous systems: A review. AGU Books. Wiley Blackwell. DOI: 10.1002/9781119595007.ch10

 

6. Wasserman, N.L. and Johnson, T.M. (2020) Measurements of mass-dependent Te isotopic variation by hydride generation MC-ICP-MS. Journal of Atomic and Analytical Spectroscopy. DOI: 10.1039/C9JA00244H

 

7. Dangelmayr, M. A., Reimus, P. W., Wasserman, N. L., Punsal, J. J., Johnson, R. H., Clay, J.T., & Stone, J. J. (2017). Laboratory column experiments and transport modeling to evaluate retardation of uranium in an aquifer downgradient of a uranium in-situ recovery site. Applied Geochemistry, 80, 1–13. DOI: 10.1016/j.apgeochem.2017.02.018

 

Fulbright Graduate Researcher, 2020