Mary Abercrombie's Profile

Dr. Mary Abercrombie is an Instructor II in the Marine and Earth Sciences Department within Florida Gulf Coast University’s Water School where she also serves as the Coordinator for the B.S. in Environmental Geology Program. She earned her M.S. in Geology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, focusing on the detection of mercury in Lake Chapala, Mexico, and its resulting bioaccumulation in women living in the indigenous communities surrounding the lake. She then went on to earn her Ph.D. in Marine Chemistry at the University of South Florida, working on the detection of petroleum in the marine environment following the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. She has been a faculty member at FGCU since 2015 where she currently teaches courses in environmental chemistry as well as in physical and environmental geology. She has integrated both sustainability and on-campus fieldwork into many of her courses at FGCU. Her current research interests include the anthropogenic alteration of natural geological cycles as well as the detection of waterborne contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) and the resulting impacts on both humans and ecosystems. She is also actively engaged in efforts to increase the BIPOC and LGBTQ+ students in the geosciences. She is an active member of AAAS, AGU, GSA, AWG, NAGT, and ESWN.