Honorable prize awarded to Professor Terry Frank Bidleman

NEWS Professor Emeritus Terry Frank Bidleman is awarded the 2025 European Chemical Society Division of Chemistry & the Environment (EuChemS-DCE) Career Award. He receives the prize for his groundbreaking research that has significantly increased our understanding of how persistent organic pollutants spread in nature.

Text: Kristina Viklund

In June, Terry Bidleman, Professor Emeritus at the Department of Chemistry at Umeå University, will travel to Belgrade to receive 2025 European Chemical Society Division of Chemistry & the Environment Career Award. This highly prestigious prize is awarded every two years to an esteemed, internationally recognized environmental scientist who has demonstrated exceptional academic excellence and commitment to their field of research. The prize is awarded in conjunction with the International Conference on Chemistry and the Environment organised by the European Chemical Society (ICCE).

a person standing on a bridge over a river.

Professor Emeritus Terry Bidleman during one of many sampling in rivers, lakes and seas.

Image Mats Tysklind

Professor Bidleman has a long and successful career as a researcher behind him. His research has mainly concerned how organic pollutants spread to polar regions, lakes and seas. As early as 1988, he published the groundbreaking article "Atmospheric Processes", in which he describes how toxic compounds such as DDT and PCBs are transported as particles and vapours in the atmosphere and how they are deposited in lakes and oceans. The article, which was published in the scientific journal "Environmental Sciences & Technology", made both researchers and policymakers understand the importance of the atmosphere in the dispersion of substances into the aquatic environment. Today, Professor Bidleman investigates “Chemicals of Emerging Arctic Concern (CEACs)” in the northern Baltic and Arctic. CEACs comprise pollutant chemicals and some natural ones which have undesirable characteristics of persistence, bioaccumulation and toxicity (PBT). A recent focus is on natural compounds which are produced in the marine and terrestrial environment and have PBT properties.

Since 2011, Professor Bidleman has been working at the Department of Chemistry at Umeå University. Mats Tysklind, professor of environmental chemistry at the same department, is very grateful for the collaboration they have had over the years.

"Terry Bidleman has added broad knowledge in many relevant research areas within the environmental chemistry research in Umeå. He is also very popular for inspiring discussions on various research issues, not least among younger researchers and students," he says.

Professor Bidleman has also been very active in the strategic research programme EcoChange.

"Terry Bidleman's contribution to Ecochange has been very valuable, especially when it comes to the interdisciplinary aspects of environmental chemistry and marine ecology. He has initiated and implemented several important projects," says Agneta Andersson, professor and scientific coordinator for Ecochange.

Professor Bidleman will hold a celebration lecture on Tuesday May 27th at Umeå Marine Sciences Centre. Find more information about the lecture here.

For more information, please contact:

Terry Frank Bidleman Professor emeritus

Email

ICCE motivation for the 2025 award

"Professor Bidleman's remarkable contributions to environmental chemistry, method development and environmental risk assessment have not gone unnoticed. With a career spanning over five decades, he has been at the forefront of research into persistent organic pollutants (POPs), semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs), and halogenated natural products (HNPs). His pioneering work has significantly increased our understanding of the fate, transport and environmental impacts of these pollutants, shaped international politics, and inspired generations of scientists."

About Terry Bidleman

Terry Bidleman received his PhD in analytical chemistry from the University of Minnesota. After his dissertation, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Dalhousie University and the University of Rhode Island. After that, his scientific career continued in the Faculty of Chemistry and the Marine Sciences Program at the University of South Carolina. Here he conducted research for 17 years and during this time was appointed professor. In 1992, he left his position for another research position at Environment Canada. During his years at the University of South Carolina and Environment Canada, he went to Sweden twice as a visiting professor, to Stockholm University and Umeå University, respectively. Since 2011, Terry Bidleman has worked as a visiting professor at Umeå University.