Janet Hering

Hering grew up in New York City.[1] She studied chemistry at Cornell University and graduated in 1979.[2][3] She was a summer intern at Mobil. She joined Harvard University for her graduate studies, earning a master's in chemistry in 1981, and began graduate work in organic chemistry.[1] Hering realised that she preferred environmental sciences and moved to Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution for her graduate studies.[1] She completed her PhD thesis "The Kinetics and Thermodynamics of Copper Complexation in Aquatic Systems" in 1988.[4] Her supervisor, François Morel, described her research as "elegant work on the surprisingly slow kinetics of some reactions between trace metals and organic complexing agents in natural water".[5] She described the preparation of Aquil, an artificial algal culture, and the coordination of transition metals in seawater.[6][7] At MIT, Hering met Werner Stumm, who offered her a postdoctoral position at EAWAG.[1]

Hering joined the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (EAWAG) as a research fellow. She coordinated several scientific exchanges and managed international conferences. She co-authored the textbook Principles and Applications of Aquatic Chemistry with François Morel in 1993.[8] The book was described by David Sedlak as a “a masterpiece that has influenced the way in which water chemistry is taught".[5]

Hering moved to the University of California, Los Angeles in 1991 and was named Associate Professor in 1995. Around that time, Arsenic in water supplies became a worldwide concern.[9] The World Health Organization recommended a value of only 10 μg per litre; as it can cause skin disease and cancer.[10] Hering joined the California Institute of Technology in 1996, where she worked until 2006. Her work was supported by the National Science Foundation.[11] She looked at the oxidation of arsenic in the Los Angeles Aqueduct, in particular at Hot Creek.[12] Hot Creek is a geothermal area, where arsenic occurs at high concentrations as it degases from magma.[10] The oxidation state of arsenic impacts its toxicity and mobility, as well as how easily it can be removed with treatment.[13] By monitoring the amount of arsenic at various positions downstream, Hering found that the concentration remained constant, but the oxidation state changed.[10] Hering found that arsenic was being oxidised into Arsenic(V) by a biological agent known as a macrophyte.[10] She monitored Owens Lake, which is once of the largest in California but has dried up since the Los Angeles Aqueduct was constructed.[10] The dusty lake bed results in large (> 10 μm) particles of high arsenic content airborne dust that can travel far and be inhaled.[10] Hering worked closely with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to mitigate the arsenic in their watershed.[10] She has continued to study arsenic contamination of water and ways to remove arsenic from drinking water.[14][15] She identified that it was possible to remove arsenic from water using coagulation with ferric oxide and alum.[16][17] Complete removal of Arsenic(V) oxide could be achieved after doses of 5 mg/L Ferric oxide.[18] She has also investigated reverse osmosis and nanofiltration membranes, as well as on manganite surfaces.[19][20] She gave evidence to the United States Environmental Protection Agency Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Arsenic Research and served on the Science Advisory Board.[21][22][23] She was elected to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in 2015.[24]

In 2007 she returned to the ETH Zurich, where she was appointed Professor of Environmental Biogeochemistry, and became Director of EAWAG.[25] At EAWAG Hering is responsible for a $48 million annual budget, 300 staff and 100 graduate students.[1] She was the first woman to be made Director of a Swiss federal research institute.[1] She was made a Professor of Environmental Chemistry at EPFL in 2010.[2] Since her return to Switzerland, Hering has worked on water quality and management, as well as promoting collaboration between academics.[26] She is an investigator of the National Science Foundation’s Engineering Research Center for Re-inventing the Nation's Urban Water Infrastructure (ReNUWIt).[27] Hering has written about the need for more knowledge brokering and ways to use interdisciplinary science to address challenges in society.[28][29] In particular, Hering believes if water research was synthesised it would be possible to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.[30]

She was made an honorary fellow of IHE Delft Institute for Water Education in 2017 and a fellow of the Geochemical Society in 2018.[31][32] She was awarded the Clarke Prize from the National Water Research Institute in 2018.[5] She serves as the chairwoman of the ETH Zurich Women Professors forum.[33]