Rate My Professor Anthony Umeh

Dr. Anthony Umeh is a Research Fellow at the Global Centre for Environmental Remediation (GCER) and an Adjunct Lecturer in the School of Science, College of Engineering, Science and Environment, at the University of Newcastle, Australia. He earned his PhD in Environmental Remediation from the University of Newcastle, an MSc in Contaminated Land Remediation from Lancaster University, United Kingdom, and a Bachelor of Science with Honours in Zoology from Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria. Umeh's research centers on emerging contaminants, with a particular emphasis on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), including their fate and transport in soil and groundwater, in-situ immobilisation strategies, sorption and desorption dynamics, and adsorption-based remediation technologies. His expertise extends to contaminant bioaccessibility and bioavailability, soil geochemistry, environmental statistics, machine learning applications for sorption prediction, and human and ecological health risk assessments. He currently leads industry-funded projects on PFAS transport and immobilisation, providing critical insights into contaminant behavior post-release to support risk-based contaminated land management.

Umeh has published extensively since 2017, with over 10 first-author peer-reviewed articles and contributions to books and chapters. Key works include the first application of machine learning and multivariate analyses to predict PFOS sorption across 114 tropical and temperate soils (Environmental Science & Technology, 2021); 'A systematic investigation of single solute, binary and ternary PFAS transport in water-saturated soil' (Journal of Hazardous Materials, 2024); 'Toward In Situ Sequestration of Multicomponent PFAS Using Injectable Adsorbent Suspensions' (ACS ES&T Water, 2023); 'Dynamic Column Studies of Multicomponent PFAS Sequestration' (ACS ES&T Water, 2024); and 'In vitro gastrointestinal mobilization and oral bioaccessibility of PAHs' (Environment International, 2019). He co-authored chapters in 'Per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances: Occurrence, toxicity and remediation of PFAS' (2025), covering PFAS dynamics, challenges, and a zero-PFAS future. Invited by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations to present on PFAS at the Global Symposium on Soils and Water, Umeh has spoken at international conferences in Australia, Asia, North America, and the United Kingdom. He serves as a peer reviewer and guest editor for prominent environmental science journals and holds memberships in the Society for Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (Asia Pacific), American Chemical Society, Soil Science Society of Australia, and International Union of Soil Science.