Welcome to the Tian Research Lab

The Tian lab is located at Northeastern University, in the heart of Boston, MA.  Our lab focuses on the identification and quantification of known and unknown contaminants in our environment, to assess their risks to human health and the ecosystem.

Since hundreds of thousands of synthetic chemicals are used in our daily life, many of them go into the water, soil, air, and biota. To understand what are the harmful chemicals we are exposed to, we use high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) and chemoinformatics to perform non-target analysis (NTA). Coupling NTA with bioassays and chromatography, we will assess the risk of contaminants, and pinpoint the causal pollutants for observed toxicities. We will also explore the impact and behavior of microplastics, especially tire wear particles that are produced every day all over the world.