Robin R. Rodriguez

Associate Professor, Earth Sciences

Young Hall 106B
(636) 627-4324
rrodriguez@lindenwood.edu

Biographical Information

Dr. Rodriguez grew up and graduated from high school in the St. Louis area. She then earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in soil science at Utah State University. From there, she was employed as the supervisor of the Agricultural Extension Soils Laboratory at the University of Missouri-Columbia (for almost 10 years), and while there, she earned an M.S. degree in civil (environmental) engineering. As an engineer, she moved back to St. Louis to begin working on hazardous waste site investigations for environmental engineering consulting firms. Equipped with her academic background in environmental chemistry, she took on the expertise of environmental risk assessment. Gaining a keen interest in risk assessment, she took a break from consulting and left for Oklahoma State University, accepting the Presidential Fellowship in Water, Energy, and the Environment from their Environmental Institute, to earn her Ph.D. in soil science. For her doctoral research, she investigated human exposure to chemically contaminated soil. To round off her academic credentials, Rodriguez also earned a Graduate Certificate in clinical toxicology from the University of Florida, College of Pharmacy. After earning her doctorate, she returned to environmental consulting, specializing as an environmental risk assessor for both human and wildlife exposures to chemically contaminated media. Her environmental consulting career spans over 25 years of experience in which she has designed and executed environmental risk assessments for over 100 chemically contaminated sites.

In 2004, Rodriguez began teaching at the university level, and eventually she taught at three different institutions in the St. Louis area. She taught on a part-time basis while continuing to work full time as an environmental consultant. Over her many years of teaching, she has taught a broad breadth of environmental science and engineering classes at both undergraduate and graduate levels, covering such topics as physical geology, physical geography, soil science, environmental sampling, hazardous waste management, solid waste management, industrial hygiene, occupational health, environmental health, environmental technology, environmental policy, and many others. She very much enjoys interacting with students and bringing her practical, real-world experiences as an environmental engineer and scientist to the classroom. In 2014, she accepted an assistant professor position at Lindenwood to teach on a full-time basis. In 2019, she was promoted to the position of associate professor.

Academic & Research Interests

• Fate and behavior of chemical contaminants in the environment.
• Quantifying exposure to chemical contaminants.
• Bioavailability of chemicals taken into the body.
• Methodologies to lower the uncertainty in risk assessment.

Publications

• Basta, N.T., J. N. Foster, E.A. Dayton, R. R. Rodriguez, and S.W. Casteel. 2007. “The effect of dosing vehicle on arsenic bioaccessibility in smelter-contaminated soils.” Invited manuscript for the special JEHS publication: “Bioaccessibility and human bioavailability of soil contaminants,” Journal of Environmental Health Science, Part A, 42(9):1275-1281.
• Rodriguez, R.R., N.T. Basta, S.W. Casteel, F.P. Armstrong, and D.C. Ward. 2003. "Chemical extraction methods to assess bioavailable arsenic in soils and solid media." Journal of Environmental Quality, 32:876-884.
• Basta, N.T., R.R. Rodriguez, and S.W. Casteel. 2001. "Bioavailability and Risk of Arsenic Exposure by the Soil Ingestion Pathway." Invited, Chapter 5 in: Environmental Chemistry of Arsenic, W. T. Frankenberger, editor. Marcel Dekker, New York, New York.
• Basta, N.T., R.R. Rodriguez, and S.W. Casteel. 2001. "Final Report: Development of chemical methods to assess the bioavailability of arsenic in contaminated media." Report to the National Center for Environmental Research, U. S. EPA Office of Research and Development, U. S. EPA Grant Number R825410.
• Rodriguez, R.R., N.T. Basta, S.W. Casteel, and L.W. Pace. 1999. "An in-vitro gastrointestinal method to assess bioavailability of arsenic in contaminated soils and solid media." Environmental Science and Technology, 33:642-649.
• Rodriguez, R.R. 1998. Bioavailability and Bioremediation of Arsenic in Contaminated Soils and Solid Media. PhD Dissertation, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK.
• Rodriguez, R.R. 1994. Detection of Dinitrophenol on Styrene Beads by the Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA). MS Thesis, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO.
• Campbell, W.F, R.J. Wagenet, and R.R. Rodriguez. 1986. “Salinity, water management, and fertility interactions on yield and nitrogen fixation in snap-beans.” Irrigation Science, 7(3):195-204.
• Wagenet, R.J., R.R. Rodriguez, W.F. Campbell, and D.L. Turner. 1983. “Fertilizer and Salty Water Effects on Phaseolus.” Agronomy Journal, 75(2):161-166.
• Rodriguez, R.R. 1981. Fertility and Saline Water Management Interactions on Plant Growth and Nitrogen Fixation in Phaseolus. MS Thesis, Utah State University, Logan, UT.

Proceedings & Abstracts

• Rodriguez, R.R. 2019. “Contaminated site segregation approaches for reasonable exposure point concentrations for a human health risk assessment; a case study.” Society for Risk Analysis Annual Meeting, Arlington, VA, December 8-12, 2019.
• Rodriguez, R.R. 2006. “Measuring bioavailable fractions of metals in soils”. Invited presentation at the Seventh Annual Louisville Chemistry Conference, US Army Corps of Engineers-Louisville District, Louisville, KY, June 6-7.
• Schroeder, J.L., N.T. Basta, D.C. Ward, R.R. Rodriguez, and S.W. Casteel. 2000. "Estimating bioavailable As, Pb, and Cd in contaminated soil by an in-vitro gastrointestinal method." Soil Science Society of America Annual Meeting,MN, November 5-10, 1999.
• Ward, D.C., N.T. Basta, S.W. Casteel, F.P. Armstrong, and R.R. Rodriguez. 2000. "Estimating bioavailable arsenic in contaminated soil by chemical methods." Soil Science Society of America Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, MN, November 5-10, 1999.
• Rodriguez, R.R., N.T. Basta, and S.W. Casteel. 1999. "The relationship between arsenic concentration, arsenic bioavailability, and risk in contaminated media." Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 20^th Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA, November 14-18, 1999.
• Rodriguez, R.R., N.T. Basta, S.W. Casteel and L.W. Pace. 1999. "An in-vitro gastrointestinal method to estimate bioavailable arsenic in contaminated soils and solid media." Conference on Innovative Clean-up Approaches, U. S. EPA Office of Research and Development, Bloomingdale, IL, November 2-4, 1999.
• Basta, N.T., R.R. Rodriguez, and S.W. Casteel. 1999. "In-vitro gastrointestinal method to estimate bioavailable arsenic in contaminated soils." Proceedings of the 5^th International Conference on the Biogeochemistry of Trace Elements, Vienna, Austria, July 11-15, 1999.
• Rodriguez, R.R., N.T. Basta, S.W. Casteel and L.W. Pace. 1999. "Quantifying bioavailable arsenic for more reasonable estimates of site risks." Tri-Services Conference on Topics in Toxicology and Risk Assessment, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, April 12-15, 1999.
• Rodriguez, R.R., N.T. Basta, S.W. Casteel and L.W. Pace. 1998. "Chemical methods to estimate bioavailable arsenic in contaminated soils and solid media." Society for Risk Analysis Annual Meeting, Phoenix, AZ, December 6-9, 1998.
• Rodriguez, R.R., N.T. Basta, S.W. Casteel and L.W. Pace. 1998. "Chemical methods to estimate bioavailable arsenic in contaminated soils and solid media." Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 19th Annual Meeting, Charlotte, NC, November 15-19, 1998.
• Rodriguez R.R. and N.T. Basta. 1997. "Bioremediation of arsenic in contaminated soils by enhanced biomethylation." Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 18^th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, November 16-20, 1997.
• Rodriguez R.R. and N.T. Basta. 1997. "Quantifying bioavailable arsenic in contaminated soils by in-vitro gastrointestinal methods." Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 18^th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, November 16-20, 1997.
• Mossman, D.J., C.J. Baker, R.R. Rodriguez, and T.L. Feldbush. 1992. Field Analysis of contaminated sediments by immunoassay. National Conference on Environmental Engineering – Water Forum, Baltimore, MD.
• Rodriguez, R.R. 1990. "Biodegradation of lignin-like pollutants." American Society of Civil Engineers National Conference, Washington, D.C., November 3-6, 1990.

Personal Interests

In her spare time, Dr. Rodriguez enjoys:

• Gardening
• Walking, Hiking
• Camping, Fishing
• Reading classic science fiction
• Watching classic movies