Sandra Brommer

Sandra Brommer

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences
Doctoral Researcher

Contact details

Telephone
+44 (0)121 414 5431
Email
sxb163@bham.ac.uk
Address
School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Title of PhD: Human exposure to organophosphate flame retardants

Supervisor: Professor Stuart Harrad

Sandra Brommer is undertaking doctoral research about human exposure to organophosphate flame retardants. This research includes recruitment of volunteers willing to participate in exposure monitoring campaigns, collection of dust and air samples, extraction and clean-up methods like ASE and SPE and subsequent analysis via GC/MS. She will also measure dietary exposure in collaboration with the Food and Environment Research Agency in York.

Qualifications

  • Diploma in food chemistry (Germany, 2009)
  • Second state examination in food chemistry (Germany, 2011)

Biography

Sandra Brommer studied food chemistry at University of Hohenheim, Germany before undertaking her second state examination in food chemistry in Hamburg, Germany in 2010/2011. She spent 7 months at the MTM Research Centre of the University of Örebro, Sweden to write her Diploma thesis in 2009.

Sandra Brommer’s PhD is funded by the School of Geography, Earth & Environmental Sciences and the Food and Environment Research Agency (FERA).

Research

Organophosphate flame retardants, “novel” BFRs, human exposure to flame retardants, indoor contamination, food contamination

Research group

Environmental Health Sciences

Other activities

Sandra Brommer actively collaborates with following laboratories: 

  • MTM Research Centre, Örebro University, Sweden 
  • Toxicological Centre, University of Antwerp, Belgium 
  • Department of Geography, University of Toronto, Canada 
  • Department for Environmental Chemistry, Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht, Germany 
  • School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

Sandra Brommer is also the Doctoral Researcher Rep for the Environmental Health Sciences Group.

Publications

Oral presentations

2011

5th POPs conference, Birmingham, UK: Sandra Brommer, Stuart Harrad, Nele van den Eede, and Adrian Covaci: “ A preliminary assessment of human exposure to organophosphate flame retardants via dust ingestion”

Poster presentations

2009

ICCE 2009, Stockholm, Sweden: Anna Rotander, Sandra Brommer, Sara Persson, Ulf Magnusson, Bert van Bavel: ”Levels of BDE-209 and other polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) in wild Swedish mink (Mustela vison)” 

2011

From Exposure to Health Effects: Novel Approches to find the Linkage, Birmingham, UK: Sandra Brommer, Stuart Harrad, Nele van den Eede, and Adrian Covaci: “A preliminary assessment of human exposure to organophosphate flame retardants via dust ingestion”

Dioxin 2011, Brussels, Belgium: Sandra Brommer, Stuart Harrad, Nele van den Eede, and Adrian Covaci: “Concentrations of organophosphate and brominated flame retardants in german indoor dust samples”

Collaboration results

Anna Rotander, Bert van Bavel, Anuschka Polder, Frank Rigét, Guðjón Atli Auðunsson, Geir Wing Gabrielsen, Gísli Víkingsson, Dorete Bloch, Maria Dam Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) in marine mammals from Arctic and North Atlantic regions, 1986–2009, Environ Int (2011), doi:10.1016/j.envint.2011.07.001 - assistance with the pBDE analytic