Andrew "AJ" Kondash

Andrew “AJ” Kondash serves as a Research Environmental Scientist for RTI’s Environmental, Engineering, and Economics Division, where he analyzes the joint impacts of energy development, food resilience, and environmental contamination on human health by combining analytical chemistry with geospatial and large database analysis. His background working with policy, community, and scientific leaders across the world has helped him contribute to a diverse range of projects across RTI, including a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Institute for Food and Agriculture Grant in partnership with Duke University. This project examines the water quality and human health risks associated with the reuse of oilfield produced water for crop irrigation. He has also contributed to EPA grants examining indicators, tracers, and surrogates for chlorinated vapor intrusion and the remediation of coal combustion residuals, helped draft recommendations on cloud seeding human health risks and environmental fate and transport for an international environmental agency, assisted with RTI efforts to identify risk factors associated with chronic kidney disease of unknown etiology (CKDu) in Latin America and Asia, and supported the state of North Carolina to identify and mitigate lead in drinking water at childcare centers and schools.

Prior to his career at RTI, Dr. Kondash studied Earth and Ocean Science at Duke University where he ran complex chemical analyses to measure trace metals, common anions and cations, stable isotope ratios, and radionuclides. He applied this analytical expertise to topics including oil and gas production, powerplant water use, environmental contamination, and groundwater quality to investigate how water can be efficiently reused, treated, and managed. AJ has compiled a rich portfolio of high impact publications, many of which explain complex scientific concepts in a way the general public can understand. His 2015 study, Water footprint of hydraulic fracturing, was published in Environmental Science and Technology Letters, and was selected as one of the most read articles for the journal in 2017.