Kabindra Shakya

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• Ph.D.
• Professor (Associate) at Villanova University

High levels of trace metals in urban community garden soils pose human health risk due to the potential exposure through the ingestion of crops grown in contaminated soil and other exposures. This study assesses eight trace metal and metalloids (As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, V, and Zn) in a total of 54 soil samples collected from nine community gardens a...

Introduction: Physicians are often the first to witness the health effects of climate change and this allows them a unique platform to advocate for patients' health. Developing countries are disproportionately impacted by climate change but less is known about the health effects related to climate change in these countries. This survey was done to...

Background Lead is an environmental health hazard that disproportionately impacts communities of color across the United States. Recent incidents of widespread lead exposure have been linked to aging infrastructure, historical land use, and challenges in lead remediation. Purpose To determine community research priorities for a subsequent lead exp...

Background Subways are popular and efficient modes of transportation in cities. However, people are exposed to high levels of particulate matter (PM) in subways. Subway air quality in the United States has been investigated in a few cities, but data is lacking on simultaneous measurement of several pollutants, especially ultrafine particles (UFP) a...

Urban air pollution has been long understood as a critical threat to human health worldwide. Worsening urban air quality can cause increased rates of asthma, respiratory illnesses, and mortality. Air pollution is also an important environmental justice issue as it disproportionately burdens populations made vulnerable by their socioeconomic and hea...

Since the 1970s, air quality has improved at the national level in the United States, coincident with the introduction of the Clean Air Act and other air pollution regulations at a greater frequency. We present a case study from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania—the sixth most populous city in the United States. The main objectives of this study are to an...

Community gardens are often seen as a means for producing sustainable food resources in urban communities. However, the presence of trace metals and metalloids such as lead, arsenic, and cadmium in urban soils poses a health risk to gardeners who participate in urban community gardens. They are exposed to these contaminates through multiple exposur...

Air pollution can have deleterious impacts on human health and the environment. Historically, air pollution studies have focused more on cities. However, it is also important to consider the impact on large suburban populations living closer to the major cities. In this study, nitrogen oxides (nitrogen dioxide and nitric oxide), sulfur dioxide, ozo...

Community gardens have been seen sprouting up in and around urban settings such as Philadelphia and Pittsburgh over the past several decades. Due to the long histories of industrial activities and urbanization, these soils in urban regions may be at a high risk for various contaminants such as metals and metalloids. Using inductively coupled plasma...

Urban and ex-urban residents have been increasingly utilizing community gardens to supplement their diets, foster relationships with neighbors and learn new skills. Soils in urban-region community gardens, however, can be detrimental to human health if contaminated with metals. In this study, the soils of 20 Philadelphia-region community gardens (a...

Understanding relationships between urban structure patterns and air pollutants is key to sustainable urban planning. In this study, we employ a mobile monitoring method to collect PM2.5 and BC data in the city of Philadelphia, PA during the summer of 2019 and apply the Structure of Urban Landscapes (STURLA) methodology to examine relationships bet...

Global atmospheric warming leads to climate change that results in a cascade of events affecting human mortality directly and indirectly. The factors that influence climate change-related mortality within the peer-reviewed literature were examined using Whittemore and Knafl's framework for an integrative review. Ninety-eight articles were included...

Indoor radon poses one of the most significant environmental threats to public health as it is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the United States. Developing a more thorough understanding of the factors that affect radon concentrations is key for developing risk maps, identifying where testing should be a priority, and education about ind...

Urban air pollution poses a major threat to human health. Understanding where and when urban air pollutant concentrations peak is essential for effective air quality management and sustainable urban development. To this end, we implement a mobile monitoring methodology to determine the spatiotemporal distribution of particulate matter (PM) and blac...

Understanding the relationships between land cover/urban structure patterns and air pollutants is key to sustainable urban planning and development. In this study, we employ a mobile monitoring method to collect PM2.5 and BC data in the city of Philadelphia, PA during the summer of 2019 and apply the Structure of Urban Landscapes (STURLA) methodolo...

Understanding the relationships between land cover/urban structure patterns and air pollutants is key to sustainable urban planning and development. In this study, we employ a mobile monitoring method to collect PM2.5 and BC data in the city of Philadelphia, PA during the summer of 2019 and apply the Structure of Urban Landscapes (STURLA) methodolo...

Microbes are abundant inhabitants of the near-surface atmosphere in urban areas. The distribution of microbial communities may benefit or hinder human wellbeing and ecosystem function. Surveys of airborne microbial diversity are uncommon in both natural and built environments and those that investigate diversity are stationary in the city, thus mis...

We present the first report of exposure to particulate matter by commuters at 12 underground subway stations in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Particle measurements were taken during two springtime periods: March 4 to 9, 2018 and February 1 to April 12, 2019. Particle concentrations were variable across the subway stations and demonstrated high t...

Microbes are abundant inhabitants of the near-surface atmosphere in urban areas. The distribution of microbial communities may benefit or hinder human wellbeing and ecosystem function. Surveys of airborne microbial diversity are uncommon in both natural and built environments and those that investigate diversity are stationary in the city, thus mis...

Microorganisms are abundant in the near surface atmosphere and make up a significant fraction of organic aerosols with implications on both human health and ecosystem services. Despite their importance, studies investigating biogeographical patterns of the atmospheric microbiome between urban and suburban areas are limited. Urban and suburban locat...

Mobile monitoring is a useful approach for measuring intra-urban variation of air pollution in urban environments. In this study, we used a mobile monitoring approach to study the spatial-temporal variability of air and noise pollution in urban neighborhoods of Philadelphia. During summer 2017, we used portable instruments to measure PM2.5, black c...

Air pollution is a major environmental problem in the Kathmandu Valley. Specifically, roadside and traffic-related air pollution exposure levels were found at very high levels exceeding Nepal air quality standards for daily PM2.5. In an exposure study involving traffic police officers, we collected 78 blood samples in a highly polluted spring seaso...

Semicontinuous PM2.5 and black carbon (BC) concentrations, and 24 h integrated PM2.5 filter samples were collected near roadways in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. Instruments were carried by a group of volunteer traffic police officers in the vicinity of six major roadway intersections in the Kathmandu Valley across two sampling periods in 2014. Dail...

Particulate matter (PM2.5, PM10, and TSP), black carbon (BC), and PM constituent components were measured at a location in an urban residential neighborhood of Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. PM2.5, TSP, and BC were measured during winter, and PM2.5, PM10, and their chemical composition was measured during the summer monsoon periods in 2014. Both indoor a...

Kathmandu Valley is one of the largest and most polluted metropolitan regions in the Himalayan foothills. Rapidly expanding urban sprawl and a growing fleet of vehicles, and industrial facilities such as brick factories across the valley have led to conditions where ambient concentrations of key gaseous air pollutants are expected to exceed Nepal's...

Inexpensive cloth masks are widely used in developing countries to protect from particulate pollution albeit limited data on their efficacy exists. This study examined the efficiency of four types of masks (three types of cloth masks and one type of surgical mask) commonly worn in the developing world. Five monodispersed aerosol sphere size (30, 10...

Objectives: To investigate the traffic-related PM2.5 and black carbon (BC) exposures and assess their health effects. Methods: Personal exposure to PM2.5 and BC levels were monitored in a cohort of traffic police (n=53) at six locations in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal during dry and rainy seasons in 2014. Results: Mean on-road exposure levels of PM2.5 a...

The air quality in the outflow from Fort Worth, TX was studied in June 2011 at a location surrounded by oil and gas development in the Barnett Shale. The objectives of this study were to understand the major sources of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and organic aerosols and explore the potential influence each VOC source had on ozone and seconda...

Exposure to traffic pollution has been generally accepted to be deleterious to human health. Much of our understanding of this stems from studies performed in developed nations, where emissions controls are reasonable and overall pollutant loading is relatively low. However, much of the world is subjected to substantially different aerosol condi...

We investigated disparities in elemental sulfur and inorganic sulfate concentrations in ambient fine particulate matter (PM2.5) data from 2005 to 2012 at a monitoring station in Fairbanks, AK. In approximately 28% of the observations from 2005 to 2012, elemental sulfur by X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy significantly exceeded the inorganic su...

Submicron aerosol particles collected simultaneously at the mountain peak (2182 m a.s.l.) and at a forested mid-mountain site (1300 m a.s.l.) on Whistler Mountain, British Columbia, Canada, during June and July 2010 were analyzed by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy for quantification of organic functional groups. Positive matrix facto...

The organic functional group composition of particles produced in laboratory “smog” chambers were characterized by scanning transmission X-ray microscopy (STXM) with near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopy and characteristic spectral signatures for secondary organic aerosol (SOA) were identified. The main objective of this s...

Submicron aerosol particles collected simultaneously at the mountain peak (2182 m a.s.l.) and at a forested mid-mountain site (1300 m a.s.l.) on Whistler Mountain, British Columbia, Canada, during June and July 2010 were analyzed by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy for quantification of organic functional groups. Positive matrix facto...

Gaseous elemental mercury (GEM; Hg0(g)) was oxidized by ozone and secondary hydroxyl radicals generated by the chemistry associated with the formation of secondary organic aerosols. The reaction was investigated in a 9-m3 Teflon® batch reactor. The losses of GEM in ozone-only experiments compared well with numerical model predictions based on publ...

Ambient aerosol samples (n = 287) collected at a semi-rural location, Thompson Farm (TF) in Durham, New Hampshire, from August 2007 to 2008 exhibited seasonal variation, characterized by the largest total carbon (TC) concentrations during winter (3.74 ± 2.55 μg C m−3) and the smallest during summer (1.21 ± 1.22 μg C m−3). On average, 92% of TC was...

Solvent-extractable monomeric methoxyphenols in aerosol samples conventionally have been used to indicate the influence of biomass combustion. In addition, the presence of lignin oxidation products (LOP), derived from the CuO oxidation of vascular plant organic matter, can help trace the source and inputs of primary biological particles in aerosols...

Stable carbon (delta13C) and nitrogen (delta15N) isotopes were used to study aerosol characteristics and possible sources at Thompson Farm, Durham, New Hampshire. Bulk aerosols (total number of samples = 156) collected on quartz fiber filters over 24 hours on select days during the period August 23, 2007 to August 13, 2008 were analyzed by a Costec...

Secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation from the photooxidation of five polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs, naphthalene, 1- and 2-methylnaphthalene, acenaphthylene, and acenaphthene) was investigated in a 9-m(3) chamber in the presence of nitrogen oxides and the absence of seed aerosols. Aerosol size distributions and PAH decay were monitored...

To investigate the air pollution from aerosols in Kathmandu during winter, bulk aerosol samples were collected during winter 2007–2008 to characterize carbonaceous and ionic species and carbon and nitrogen isotopes. This study illustrates the applications of carbon and nitrogen isotope data for characterizing aerosols and their implications for ide...

Regulations to protect human health and ecosystem integrity from environmental mercury rely in part on an accurate scientific understanding of atmospheric processes that lead to its dry and wet deposition. One key process is the oxidation of gaseous elemental mercury (GEM) to reactive mercury (RM), which is more readily dry and wet deposited than G...

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are products of incomplete combustion and are ubiquitous in the environment. In the atmosphere, gas-phase reactions of PAHs with two aromatic rings with hydroxyl radicals (OH) lead to products that partition to the aerosol phase, forming secondary organic aerosol (SOA). The main objective of this study is to...

The efficiency of vetiver grass (Vetiveria zizanioides) in removing 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) from aqueous media was explored in the presence of a common agrochemical, urea, used as a chaotropic agent. Chaotropic agents disrupt water structure, increasing solubilization of hydrophobic compounds (TNT), thus, enhancing plant TNT uptake. The primary...

Previous research in our laboratory investigated the effectiveness of a common agrochemical, urea used as a chaotropic agent to facilitate 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) removal by vetiver grass (Vetiveria zizanioides L.). Chaotropic agents disrupt water structure, increasing solubilization of hydrophobic compounds (TNT), and enhancing plant TNT uptak...

2,4,6-Trinitrotoluene (TNT) is a potent mutagen, and a Group C human carcinogen that has been widely used to produce munitions and explosives. Vast areas that have been previously used as ranges, munition burning, and open detonation sites are heavily contaminated with TNT. Conventional remediation activities in such sites are expensive and damagin...

2,4,6-Trinitrotoluene(TNT) is a potent mutagen and a Group C human carcinogen that has been widely used to produce munitions and explosives. As a result, vast areas that have been previously used as military ranges, munition burning and open detonation sites have been heavily contaminated with TNT. Conventional remedial activities in such contamina...