In this video, Prof. Susan Richardson, President of ASMS, and Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of South Carolina, discusses the impact of pollen on disinfectant by-product formation in drinking water. Her team has found that presence of pollen can exacerbate the levels of disinfectant by-product in water and has developed a sensitive gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analytical method that has allowed the quantification of about 70 target disinfection by-products at the low part per trillion level. Richardson also describes further technology that powers her research, how she’s identified previously unknown disinfection by-products that are formed through pollen precursors, and hints at what she’s excited for in the future of mass spectrometry.