Dr. Young is a Professor and Chair in Rutgers Department of Environmental Sciences and Biotechnology Center for Agriculture and the Environment. She is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the U.S. Department of Defense Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program. She also serves on the EC-US Task Force on Environmental Biotechnology.

Research Areas

Examining the instrinsic ability of anaerobic communities from NY-NJ Harbor sediments todegrade alkanes and PAHs, and environmental factors which affect the activity Determining the novel microbial chemistry of the anaerobic pathways of naphthalene, methylnapthalene and phenanthrene by active consortia, and that of the alkanes by newly isolated pure cultures; Investigating methods to improve or enhance natural rates of biodegradation; Developing biochemical markers for assessing intrinsic biodegradation; Isolating novel anaerobes able to degrade additional petroleum constituents and other aromatic compounds; Characterizing the anaerobic toluene pathway in a denitrifying strain with a molecular genetic approach.

Scholarly Activities

• 2001 Research Excellence Award, Board of Trustees, Rutgers Univeristy
• 1999 Research Excellence Award, Cook College, NJ Agricultural Experiment Station, Rutgers University
• 1996 Invited presentation to the Presidents’ Circle of the National Academy of Sciences (Advisory group to NAS President Bruce Albert, comprised of 100 buisness leaders) – Colloquium on “Water Resources for the 21st Century”; presentation title, “Environmental Biotechnology”

Recent Publications

1. Boos, CJ, Haling, U, Schofield, S, Cullinan, P, Bull, AMJ, Fear, NT, Bennett, AN, ADVANCE Study. Relationship between combat-related traumatic injury and its severity to predicted cardiovascular disease risk: ADVANCE cohort study. BMC Cardiovasc Disord. 2023;23 (1):581. doi: 10.1186/s12872-023-03605-0. PubMed PMID:38012542 PubMed Central PMC10680223
2. Ewens, E, Young, L, Mackay, S. Meat-Free Mondays in Hospital Cafés in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Nutrients. 2023;15 (22):. doi: 10.3390/nu15224797. PubMed PMID:38004191 PubMed Central PMC10675120
3. Oikonomou, EK, Thangaraj, PM, Bhatt, DL, Ross, JS, Young, LH, Krumholz, HM, Suchard, MA, Khera, R. An explainable machine learning-based phenomapping strategy for adaptive predictive enrichment in randomized clinical trials. NPJ Digit Med. 2023;6 (1):217. doi: 10.1038/s41746-023-00963-z. PubMed PMID:38001154 PubMed Central PMC10673945
4. Weisbaum, E, Chadi, N, Young, LT. Improving physician wellness through the Applied Mindfulness Program for Medical Personnel: findings from a prospective qualitative study. CMAJ Open. 2023;11 (6):E1083-E1092. doi: 10.9778/cmajo.20220252. PubMed PMID:37989514 PubMed Central PMC10681671
5. Alexandrou, M, Rempakos, A, Kostantinis, S, Simsek, B, Karacsonyi, J, Choi, JW, Poommipanit, P, Khatri, JJ, Young, L, Davies, R et al.. Atrial fibrillation and chronic total occlusion percutaneous coronary intervention outcomes: insights from the Progress-CTO registry. J Invasive Cardiol. 2023;35 (8):. doi: 10.25270/jic/23.00114. PubMed PMID:37983099
6. Chang, TY, Chen, GY, Chen, JJ, Young, LH, Chang, LT. Application of artificial intelligence algorithms and low-cost sensors to estimate respirable dust in the workplace. Environ Int. 2023;182 :108317. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2023.108317. PubMed PMID:37963425
7. Oikonomou, EK, Thangaraj, PM, Bhatt, DL, Ross, JS, Young, LH, Krumholz, HM, Suchard, MA, Khera, R. An explainable machine learning-based phenomapping strategy for adaptive predictive enrichment in randomized controlled trials. medRxiv. 2023; :. doi: 10.1101/2023.06.18.23291542. PubMed PMID:37961715 PubMed Central PMC10635225