He is the Dudley Professor of Chemistry and Environmental Science and Engineering at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP).
In 2002, he led a team that discovered the ability of alfalfa to take up gold from soil and to store it in the form of nanoparticles.
[4] In 2002, Gardea-Torresdey led a team from UTEP and Mexico using technology at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) to study phytoremediation in alfalfa plants.
[5] Gardea-Torresdey estimated that, after some refinement, the process could harvest gold amounting to about 20 percent of the weight of the plant.
[7] He was named a Minnie Stevens Piper Professor in 2012, one of ten in Texas that year, in recognition of his research and classroom accomplishments.