John Scott is a Senior Chemist at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He has a B.S. degree in Chemistry and a B.S degree in Environmental Health & Safety from the Illinois State University. John’s research interests include emerging contaminants (such as microplastics and PFAS), waste utilization, and natural products. John has been studying microplastics for the last seven years and is a member of the International Freshwater Microplastics Network. He and a colleague have been running water samples from McHenry County watersheds in search of microplastics in coordination with the Environmental Defenders for the past year and will give a report on those findings.