Mary Kosuth

Background & Expertise

Mary Kosuth, PhD, (she/her) has been studying microplastic pollution for a decade. While earning an MS and PhD at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health, she refined methods to test a wide range of environmental media including indoor and ambient air, raw water, wastewater and global municipal tap water. She also tested consumer products such as internationally sourced table salts, regional beers, water filters and sports water bottles. Having spent time gathering empirical evidence of this contaminant, fully appreciating its global reach and pervasiveness, and considering the health impacts that may stem from exposure, Kosuth is now interested in examining the larger systems that generate plastic waste. 

In her current role as a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute on the Environment, she is positioned within the Midwest Carbon Leadership Project where she works with academic and industry partners to close the knowledge gaps related to deep decarbonization. In this space, she also hopes to continue working on plastic waste and microplastic pollution through collaborative efforts with stakeholders who, representing a wide range of public and private interests, are dedicated to finding innovative ways to constrain waste for the sake of improving environmental and human health. In her free time she likes to mountain bike, serenade her cats, embarrass her teen/tween children and appreciate clouds.