Burlington, Mass., April 23, 2026 — Haley & Aldrich has won funding from the U.S. Department of Defense for five new applied research projects. These projects represent groundbreaking work in areas including PFAS treatment and climate resilience.
The DOD’s Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program and Environmental Security Technology Certification Program made the awards through a rigorous and competitive evaluation process. Members of Haley & Aldrich’s Applied Research Program team — Yida Fang, Ph.D., P.E., Daniele Spirandelli, Ph.D.; Raghavendra Suribhatla Maruti, Ph.D., P.E.; and John Xiong, Ph.D., P.E. — will lead the projects.
“Each of these research endeavors reflect Haley & Aldrich’s commitment to solving complex environmental and engineering challenges,” said Xiong, who leads the Applied Research Program. “We appreciate this funding because it allows us to broaden our impact and find practical solutions for our clients and for the public good.”
With four of the projects, Haley & Aldrich’s researchers aim to develop new ways to manage contamination from PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a group of chemicals known for being pervasive in the environment and extremely difficult to destroy. Xiong will continue to develop and demonstrate the capabilities of EradiFluor, an Applied Research Program-developed technology that destroys PFAS in concentrated waste. He will also collaborate with researchers at Clarkson University and the University of California, Riverside, to develop a treatment train that achieves near-complete PFAS destruction in waste streams such as ion exchange regeneration residues and firefighting foam.
In a parallel effort, Fang will partner with a research team at Texas A&M University on an advanced ultraviolet-reductive system incorporating a 222-nanometer krypton chloride-based light source. And Suribhatla will team up with researchers at Rutgers University and the University of Arizona to develop a noninvasive, cost-effective PFAS site management methodology that integrates geophysics, lysimetry and modeling.
Spirandelli also aims to equip environmental professionals with advanced modeling tools. She will investigate an ensemble modeling approach to extreme heat mitigation, integrating data from satellite and ground-based sensors to find solutions to this problem on military bases.
Throughout the 2000s, multiple awards from the DOD and other government entities have supported the Applied Research Program’s innovations, which have included several new approaches to PFAS remediation and management. The DOD’s environmental research funding programs, SERDP and ESTCP, fund research into challenges of pressing interest to military installations.
All five projects began in either 2025 or 2026. Researchers expect them to conclude in the next one to three years.
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