Environmental Toxicology and Health Safety

Biography

Dr. Rayson received his Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in 1979 from Baker University (Kansas) in chemistry and mathematics and his Doctorate (PhD) in Chemistry from the University of Texas at Austin in 1983. Following a postdoctoral position at Indiana University, he joined the faculty in the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department at NMSU in 1986, where he currently holds the rank of Professor. He has authored more than 74 papers in peer-reviewed journals and has presented more than 110 papers at professional meetings.He has served as the Chairman of the local sections of each of two professional societies (the American Chemical Society and the Society for Applied Spectroscopy) and on each of three national committees for the SAS and a national award panel for the ACS. He has also served as chair on the national SAS Local Section Affairs committee. He was Conference Program Chair for each of three regional professional meetings and was the Conference General Chair for an international conference.

Research Interest

Dr. Rayson’s research interests pertain to the investigation of metal atoms and ions in complex chemical environments. These studies involve the elucidation of atomization, ionization, and excitation mechanisms occurring within the high temperature systems of inductively coupled argon plasma discharges and resistively heated graphite furnace atomizers. Alternately, studies of the chemical moieties on the cell walls of plants which are responsible for the selective binding of heavy metal ions from contaminated waters and soils are also pursued in the Rayson laboratory. The elucidation of these complex chemical processes necessitates the implementation of numerous, independent techniques. These “tools” have included the use of temporally and spectrally resolved atomic emission and absorption spectroscopies, laser excited luminescence measurements in both time and wavelength domains, multi-nuclear NMR spectroscopy, and frontal affinity chromatography. An example of the application of such an arsenal of techniques has been the elucidation of multiple (i.e., three) metal-coordination sites involving carboxylate groups and two additional ion-exchange site containing carboxylate and sulfonate groups, respectively, on the surface of a cell wall material derived from the plant Datura innoxia.