Kevin Tucker
Project: IIN Conference 2026: Powering Illinois’ Future Together
Research Interests:
- Water quality and sustainability
- Emerging contaminant analysis
- Mass spectrometry based measurement scince
- Experiential STEM education
- Workforce development
- University industry collaboration
Dr. Kevin Tucker is an Associate Professor of Chemistry and manager of the Shimadzu Innovation Lab at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. His work sits at the intersection of environmental analytical chemistry, water quality, sustainability, and advanced chemical measurement.
He earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign in 2011 and began his academic career at SIUE in 2016. Dr. Tucker’s research focuses on detecting pharmaceuticals, personal care products, and other emerging contaminants in local and regional waterways. His laboratory also studies how these contaminants interact with non target organisms, including invertebrates and plants, through controlled laboratory exposure models. Using LC MS, GC MS, MALDI MSI, and complementary analytical instrumentation, his group develops multidimensional datasets that provide deeper insight into contaminant occurrence, exposure, and biological uptake.
Through the Shimadzu Innovation Lab, Dr. Tucker is especially interested in building collaborations that apply advanced analytical instrumentation and small molecule method development to challenges in environmental quality, public health, sustainability, and workforce development.