Rate My Professor Andrew Frierdich

Dr. Andrew Frierdich is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment within the Faculty of Science at Monash University. His main academic specialty is low-temperature geochemistry and mineralogy. Frierdich obtained his Doctor of Philosophy in Earth and Planetary Sciences from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, in May 2012. Prior to that, he earned a Master of Science in Environmental Science in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in May 2008 and a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry with Highest Distinction from the same institution in May 2006.

Frierdich's professional career includes his current role as Senior Lecturer at Monash University since June 2015, following promotion from Lecturer. Previously, he was a National Science Foundation Division of Earth Sciences Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Iowa from February 2014 to May 2015, and a Postdoctoral Research Scholar in the Department of Geoscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from August 2012 to January 2014. He holds an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Fellowship. His research specializations encompass minerals, microbes, and solutions, with focuses on isotope geochemistry, environmental geochemistry, ore processing, and synchrotron geosciences. He supervises honours projects developing treatment strategies to couple critical metal recovery, such as nickel and cobalt, with CO₂ sequestration through geochemical and mineralogical characterisation, leaching experiments, and synchrotron analysis for sustainable mining.

Key publications include "Artificial Laterite from Acid Leaching of Ultramafic Rocks: Mobilization, Enrichment, and Extraction of Critical Metals" (Environmental Science & Technology, 2025), "Comparison between Co(II) and Ni(II) cycling at goethite-water interfaces: Interplay with Fe(II)-catalyzed recrystallization" (Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 2024), "Fe(II)-Catalyzed Recrystallization Drives Phosphorus and Aluminum Release from Goethite" (Environmental Science & Technology, 2024), "Toward mending the marine mass balance model for nickel: Experimentally determined isotope fractionation during Ni sorption to birnessite" (Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 2024), and "Mechanisms of Arsenic and Antimony Co-sorption onto Jarosite: An X-ray Absorption Spectroscopic Study" (Environmental Science & Technology, 2023). His contributions align with UN Sustainable Development Goals including SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), SDG 14 (Life Below Water), and SDG 15 (Life on Land).