Phillip Voegel

Dr. Voegel is originally from Evansville, Indiana and has recently started teaching at Kentucky Wesleyan College. He completed his undergraduate studies at Wabash College where he majored in chemistry and minored in religion. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Louisville under the direction of Dr. Richard P. Baldwin where his research focused on the development of electrochemical detectors for use with capillary electrophoresis. After completing his Ph.D., Dr. Voegel began his academic career as in instructor at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale before moving to his first full time position at Midwestern State University. At Midwestern, he taught introductory chemistry, general chemistry, analytical chemistry, and environmental chemistry. Additionally, he served as the coordinator of the environmental science program. He then moved to Southeastern Louisiana University where he taught similar courses and served as the undergraduate coordinator for chemistry and as chair of the department’s safety committee. In 2021, Dr. Voegel moved to Kentucky Wesleyan College where he plans to continue teaching and mentoring students in undergraduate research.

Dr. Voegel’s early research focused on detection of carbohydrates using active metal electrodes, the potential effect of introducing waste brine from reverse osmosis water treatment on microorganisms in the Wichita River, and the development of a student outreach program that trained high school students to give chemistry demonstration programs at elementary schools. The outreach program was recognized as a finalist for the American Chemical Society’s ChemLuminary Award for Outstanding Kids and Chemistry Program and led to two publications in the Journal of Chemical Education. At Southeastern, his environmental research focused on detection of pollutants in the Lake Pontchartrain Basin including changes in nutrients in the lake system following Hurricane Katrina and multiple openings of the Bonne Caret Spillway for the purpose of flood control, and hydrocarbons and related compounds following the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. In the laboratory, his students synthesized metal pyridinoporphyrazine and related compounds for development of electrochemical sensors and for use as catalysts. His work has been supported by more than $370,000 in grants from the Louisiana Board of Regents, Louisiana SeaGrant (NOAA), Southeastern Lake Pontchartrain Basin Research Program (US EPA), American Chemical Society Project SEED, and internal grants from Southeastern Louisiana University and Midwestern State University. His work has involved more than 50 undergraduate and high school research students leading to seven publications and eighty-eight conference presentation. More than 60% of his students have given at least one conference presentation.

Current Research Interests

Dr. Voegel’s current research focuses on the distribution of metal pollutants in the environment in the context of rail transportation of coal. While the use of coal for has fallen to an all-time low in the United States, accounting for 19% of electrical power generation, nearly 400 billion kilograms (400 teragrams) of coal were used in 2020. In Kentucky and Indiana, coal combustion accounts for 69% and 53%, respectively, of the electrical power generated. Transportation of coal from mines to power plants occurs primarily by train in open hopper cars. (Coal information from U.S. Energy Information Administration, eia.gov)

Coal dust can be distributed by vibration and wind into the environment near railways. Common metal pollutants in coal include cadmium, mercury, nickel, lead, and many others. Dr. Voegel is working to determine spatial distribution of metal pollutants around train tracks that carry significant amounts of coal and to examine the effect of land type and land use on the distribution patterns. Metals are extracted from soil and sediment samples and then analyzed by atomic spectroscopy.