• Ph.D. University of Washington, Environmental Engineering Program, Dept. Civil Engineering. August 1996.
  • Dissertation: Biotreatment of Contaminated Gases in a Sparged Suspended-Growth Bioreactor: Mass Transfer and Biodegradation Model.
  • Advisor: Dr. H.D. Stensel
• M.S.C.E. University of Washington, Environmental Engineering Program, Dept. Civil Engineering. March 1994.
  • Thesis: Cometabolic Degradation of Chlorinated Aliphatics Using a Phenol-Degrading Enrichment
  • Advisor: Dr. H.D. Stensel
• B.S. Iowa State University, May 1992 Major: Civil Engineering
  
  
• National Science Foundation Engineering Education Scholars Workshop. July 1997. Carnegie Mellon University.
• Institute for Scholarship for Engineering Education (ISEE). July 9-14, 2006. Washington DC.
  
  
• Professional Engineer (PE), State of Colorado, 2003
• Engineer in Training (EIT), State of Iowa, 1992

• Assistant Engineer at Remediation Technologies, Inc.
  Seattle, WA. Summer 1994
  Supervised and conducted laboratory experiments for an EPA SITE demonstration project to investigate the feasibility of packed-bed bioreactors for treatment of TCE and DCE contaminated gas streams.
• Assistant Engineer at Montgomery Watson, Hazardous Waste Division
  Des Moines, IA. Summer 1992
  Worked on a Superfund site 30% Remedial Design; wrote monitoring plan and quality assurance project plan; made design calculations for order of magnitude cost estimates, piping and pumping.
• Student Intern; Sandia National Laboratories, Environmental Restoration
  Albuquerque, NM. Summer 1991
  Primarily conducted research on in-situ bioremediation of an oil spill site. Project deliverables included a literature review, results of lab studies, and ideas for remediation system design.
• Environmental Engineering Intern at CH2M Hill, Municipal Services Division
  Reston, VA. Summer 1990
  Work included calculation checks, cost estimating, literature review on innovative water treatment technologies, bench scale testing for the Chesapeake project.
• Environmental Engineering Research Assistant; Civil Engineering Dept.
  Iowa State Univ. Jul. 1987 to Mar. 1992
  Supervisor Dr. A.D. Levine. Laboratory studies, data interpretation, contributions to final reports & papers. Research topics included: effect of particle size on THM formation, influence of permanganate addition on THM formation, biodegradable plastics, metals leaching from fly ash and biosorption to silica immobilized algae and actinomycetes.

• Best Paper Award with co-authors K. Paterson and C. Swan. Environmental Division of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). 2009
• J.S. Braun / Braun Intertec Professorship of Science and Technology. University of Minnesota. Department of Civil Engineering. Minneapolis, MN. Fall term 2005
• Teaching Award, Department of Civil, Environmental, & Architectural Engineering, University of Colorado. 2005
• Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP)/McGraw-Hill Award for Outstanding Teaching in Environmental Engineering & Science 2004
• Early Career Award, American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Environmental Engineering Division 2003
• Editor's Award for Outstanding Service from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Journal of Environmental Engineering, Editor Robert G. Arnold 2002
• Karen Morehouse Best Paper Award for Proceedings of the 1999 Conference on Hazardous Waste Research (with Illangasekare and Grant) 2000
• Rudolf Hering Medal, American Society of Civil Engineers 1997
• National Science Foundation Scholarship 1992-1996
• Mercury Seven Foundation Scholarship 1993-1996
• Top Civil Engineering Senior, Iowa State University 1991-1992
• Honor Societies: Tau Beta Pi, Chi Epsilon
• Student member of American Society of Civil Engineers, Society of Women Engineers

• Water Environment Federation (WEF)
• International Association on Water Quality (IAWQ)
• Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP)
• American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE)
• Engineers Without Borders (EWB)

• Board of Directors for the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP). Summer 2006 to present. Treasurer 2007 to present.
• American Soceity for Engineering Education (ASEE) Environmental Engineering Division. Board (sequentialy treasurer, secretary, program chair for 1 yr each). Summer 2006 to present.
• ABET coordinator for Dept. of Civil, Environmental, & Arch. Engineering and Environmental Engineering Program. 2008 to present.
• Faculty co-mentor for the Engineers Without Borders (EWB) CU student chapter. Summer 2003 to Summer 2005.
• Freshman advisor, Dept. of Civil, Environmental, & Arch. Engineering. Spring 1999 to Fall 2002.
• Operations committee, Dept. of Civil, Environmental, & Arch. Engineering. Fall 2001 to Summer 2002.
• Curriculum committee, Dept. of Civil, Environmental, & Arch. Engineering. Fall 2000 to Summer 2005, Fall 2008 to present.
  Chair Fall 2003 to summer 2005.
• On the Bioengineering Committee (1998-1999, 2002-2005), Undergraduate Education Council (Fall 2003 to Spring 2005), Engineering Planning and Policy committee (Aug. 1998 to 2002), and the Strategic Futures Council (Spring 1999 to 2000) for the College of Engineering.
• Member of the Women in Engineering Program faculty advisory board
• Faculty in the Environmental Engineering Program, a new undergraduate degree starting at CU in Fall 1998
• On the program committe of the National Water Environment Federation (Oct. 1998 - Oct. 2002)
• Demonstrations for: high school Career Day through Women in Engineering Program (WIEP), WIEP Energy Workshop for Middle School Girls, Expanding Your Horizons for junior high girls sponsored by the American Association of University Women (AAUW), High School Success Institute for Minority Students

• CVEN 5514: Bioremediation
  Fall 1996, 2002; Spring 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2004
  A graduate-level course covering current in-situ and ex-situ methods for bioremediation of contaminated sites. New course developed.
• CVEN 4474/5474: Hazardous and Industrial Waste Management
  Spring 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008
  A senior-level undergraduate/graduate course covering regulations, risk assessment, and treatment processes.
• CVEN 4434: Environmental Engineering Design
  Fall 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2009
  The capstone for senior undergraduate students; a real-world project (such as WW tmt plant upgrade; sustainable drinking water treatment in a developing country) is followed from proposal to design.
• CVEN 5544: Solid Waste Management
  May 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003
  Graduate course covering solid waste generation, collection, recycling, and "treatment" by incineration, composting, and landfilling.
• CVEN 1317: Introduction to Civil Engineering
  Fall 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004; Spring 1999
  Overview course for Freshman students. Includes ethics, team bridge modeling, and lab.
• CVEN 3414: Fundamentals of Environmental Engineering
  Fall 2004
  Overview of chemistry, ecology, microbiology, mass balance fundamentals; air pollution, water/wastewater treatment, hazardous waste, solid waste.
• EVEN 1000: Introduction to Environmental Engineering
  Fall 2006, 2007, 2008
  Overview course for Freshman students. Includes ethics, team project, etc.

I am currently working with other faculty to promote Engineering for Developing Communities (EDC) at the University of Colorado. We are committed to educating globally responsible students and professionals who can offer sustainable and appropriate technology solutions to the endemic problems faced by developing communities at local, national and global levels. Toward accomplishing this goal, several of the projects in the capstone design course that I teach are service-learning oriented. I am also working with Scott Summers and a number of students to research the water treatment effectiveness of the Filtron, a point-of-use water treatment filter.

I particularly enjoy mentoring the research of undergraduates and high school students in the lab. This interest began as a result of my own research experience with Dr. Audrey Levine and her master’s student Anne Spiesman at Iowa State University (ISU) just after my junior year of high school. That summer my love of environmental engineering was born. I continued working in the research laboratories in Environmental Engineering throughout my senior year of high school and 4 years as an undergraduate at ISU. Doing research made the coursework more interesting, and kept me motivated. Since I’d been in the lab longer than most graduate students (5 yrs total) I soon was able to help train other students and "co-mentor" other undergraduates with my major professor.

While a graduate student getting my masters and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Washington, I was privileged to have a number of undergraduate work-study students and students earning independent study credits working with me. It was always more fun to do research as part of a team. Everyone always had a unique perspective that contributed to the research. I was happy to see that many of these students went on to obtain advanced degrees in Environmental Engineering.

Here at the University of Colorado, I continue to enjoy working with students at all levels through lab research. I am always glad to mentor a special topics or independent study project for any student interested in getting involved in the lab. Working with bacteria is a particularly challenging area of research (after all, these are living organisms!!). I look forward to many years of collaborative research efforts with students!