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Indian-origin scientist joins PFAS cleanup research in New York
Lokesh Padhye will study PFAS removal using invasive bamboo and Hudson River monitoring.
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Ankita Baidya - Fri, 17, Jul 2026
- 05:12 EDT
- 89
Lokesh Padhye is co-leading two New York Sea Grant-funded projects on PFAS contamination and groundwater protection. / Stony Brook University
Four research projects at Stony Brook University, including two involving Indian-origin researcher Lokesh Padhye, have received funding from New York Sea Grant (NYSG) as part of an approximately $1.5 million award supporting seven research projects addressing coastal community, economic and environmental priorities across New York state, according to a report published by SBU News on July 16.
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Padhye, Associate Director of Emerging Contaminants Research at the New York State Center for Clean Water Technology and a Research Associate Professor at Stony Brook University's School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, is co-leading a project examining the use of invasive bamboo to remove PFAS, commonly known as "forever chemicals," from Long Island's contaminated groundwater alongside Christopher Gobler, Endowed Chair of Coastal Ecology and Conservation, according to SBU News.
The project, one of four Stony Brook-based studies to receive approximately $240,000 each, proposes converting invasive bamboo into a porous biochar material capable of adsorbing PFAS as a lower-cost alternative to conventional water treatment methods, the university said.
According to SBU News, Padhye said the approach offers a way to transform a plant that many Long Island homeowners and municipalities struggle to control into a valuable resource for addressing groundwater contamination while helping safeguard drinking water supplies.
Padhye is also serving as a co-investigator on another NYSG-funded project examining four decades of PFAS contamination in the Hudson River Estuary. Working alongside Assistant Professor Oliver Shipley, the research team will analyze striped bass scales collected through the Hudson River Biological Monitoring Program to better understand long-term contaminant trends, according to the report.
According to his faculty profile on Stony Brook University's website, Padhye previously served as an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Auckland in New Zealand from 2014 to 2024. Before that, he was an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Environmental Science and Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay between 2013 and 2014.
He earned both his master's and doctoral degrees in environmental engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and later served as a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 2016 to 2019, according to the Center for Clean Water Technology's staff biography.
The other Stony Brook projects funded through this NYSG grant cycle focus on fish habitat modeling in the Hudson River Estuary and improving bay scallop aquaculture, according to SBU News. Collectively, the four university-led projects will address water quality, fisheries management and coastal resilience challenges affecting New York's marine and freshwater ecosystems.
New York Sea Grant is a cooperative program of Cornell University and the State University of New York and is one of 34 university-based programs within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Sea Grant College Program. According to SBU News, the latest round of funding supports research intended to generate practical solutions for protecting coastal environments, strengthening local economies and improving the resilience of communities across New York's shoreline regions.
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