One of our 2006 speakers was Dr. Craig Criddle, Professor, Environmental Engineering & Science (EES) and Chair Professor, Environmental Science & Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. His talk, on April 14th 2006, was titled "Bioremediation of Atomic Bomb Wastes". Dr. Craig Criddle is interested in the environmental engineering, science, and science literacy needed for clean water, clean energy, and healthy ecosystems. His research focus is environmental biotechnology. He is best known for large interdisciplinary field projects, studies of microbial ecology in bioreactors, and work on microbial transformations of persistent contaminants. Some current projects include a field-scale evaluation of uranium remediation; DNA-monitoring of microbial community structure at full-scale biological wastewater treatment plants; development of membrane bioreactors for energy recovery and nutrient removal; and studies to elucidate the mechanisms and kinetics of microbial transformation of halogenated solvents. To promote science literacy, he worked with award-winning San Francisco cartoonist Larry Gonick to write "The Cartoon Guide to Chemistry." Dr. Criddle says, "Cartoons can give us an intuitive feeling for the why, and deeper understanding can grow from that intuition".

In October 2004, AEES was honored to host Dr. Linda M. Abriola, Dean of Engineering and professor in the departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Chemical and Biological Engineering at Tufts University in Boston, MA. Before arriving at Tufts in 2003, Dr. Abriola was the Horace Williams King Professor of Environmental Engineering and director of the Environmental and Water Resources Engineering Program at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. She has also been a visiting associate professor in the Department of Petroleum Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin and a visiting scientist in the Department of Geotechnical Engineering at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain. Her primary research focus is the integration of mathematical modeling and laboratory experiments to investigate and elucidate processes governing the transport, fate, and remediation of nonaqueous phase liquid organic contaminants in the subsurface.

Dr. Abriola’s numerous professional activities have included service on the US Environmental Protection Agency Science Advisory Board, the National Research Council Water Science and Technology Board, and the US Department of Energy’s NABIR (Natural and Accelerated Bioremediation Research) Advisory Committee. An author of more than 100 refereed publications, Dr. Abriola has been the recipient of a number of awards, including the Association for Women Geoscientist's Outstanding Educator Award (1996) and the National Ground Water Association’s Distinguished Darcy Lectureship (1996). She is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

In April 2004, AEES brought to Georgia Tech Dr. Daniel L. Albritton, director of the Aeronomy Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Boulder, Colorado. Dr. Albritton is one the world's foremost experts on atmospheric science and in particular, global climate change. He is one of the Coordinating Lead Authors on the recent assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on the science of the climate system. The IPCC provides scientific and technical assessments of the state of understanding for governments, industry, and the public. Dr. Albritton joined the Aeronomy Laboratory in 1967 and became Director in 1986. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering and a Doctor's degree in Physics, both from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He has received numerous awards and honors for his outstanding service to NOAA, the United States, and the international scientific community. Dr. Albritton has developed a reputation as an outstanding speaker who is able to very effectively explain complex scientific processes to audiences who may not possess extensive education in the atmospheric processes (for example, members of Congress).

The title of Dr. Albritton's talk was "The Atmosphere and Humankind: Our Common Future." Abstract: The beginning of the 21st Century saw us in continued study, debate, and decision-making (or no decision-making) on three major environmental issues. The questions that “we” have posed are: How best to protect the stratospheric ozone layer? How best to avoid changing the global climate system? How best to improve regional air quality? The “we” being referred to here includes engineers, scientists, educators, industry, lawyers, governments, and (indeed) the public. Much information was developed during the past two decades to help with the answers of these three questions. Much more information will be needed in the coming few decades.

In November 2003, AEES was honored to host Dr. Charles Richard O'Melia Professor of Environmental Engineering at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. O’Melia is highly recognized in the fields of aquatic chemistry, colloid transport, and environmental engineering. He currently presides as Abel Wolman Chair in Environmental Engineering and chair of NRC Committee on Watershed Management for New York City. He has received numerous awards for his efforts as a researcher, educator, and lecturer and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. The title of Dr. O'Melia's lecture was "Watershed Management for New York City: How to develop and implement a watershed management strategy that safeguards the health of the citizens of the City while at the same time protecting the rights and economic well-being of the citizens residing in the watershed."

After receiving his bachelor's degree in civil engineering from Manhattan College and his master's degree in environmental engineering from the University of Michigan, Dr. O'Melia worked for Hazen and Sawyer, Engineers in 1956-57. He then returned to Michigan to study for his doctorate, working on the filtration of algal suspensions. From 1961 to 1964 he served as Assistant Professor of Sanitary Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. In 1964-66 he was a postdoctoral fellow and lecturer in water chemistry at Harvard University. He joined the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1966 as Associate Professor and became Professor in 1970. From 1977 to 1980 he served as Deputy Chairman of the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering at UNC. In 1973-74 he was Visiting Professor of Environmental Engineering Science at the California Institute of Technology while on sabbatical leave. He assumed the position of Professor of Environmental Engineering at Johns Hopkins in 1980 and was Department Chairman from 1990 to 1995. In 1988-89 and again in 1996 while on sabbatical leaves he was Guest Professor at ETH-Zürich with the Swiss Federal Institute for Environmental Science and Technology (EAWAG). In 1998, he was appointed to the Abel Wolman Chair in Environmental Engineering at Hopkins.

Dr. O'Melia was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1989. He has received the 1965 and 1985 Publications Awards, the 1989 Research Division Best Paper Award and the 1990 A. P. Black Research Award from the American Water Works Association, the 1969 Award of the American Society of Civil Engineers for the Application of Research to Practice, the 1972 Distinguished Faculty Award, the 1975 Environmental Science Award, the 1988 and 1996 CH2M-Hill Awards, the 1991 Outstanding Paper Award, the 1995 Founders Award, and was selected as the 1982 Distinguished Lecturer of the Association of Environmental Engineering Professors. He was twice given the Best Lecturer Award by the engineering students in his department while at the University of North Carolina. In 1985 he was selected to present the ASCE Simon W. Freese Lecture. He received the IAWPRC-Pergammon Publications Medal in 1988 and the Gordon Maskew Fair Medal for environmental education from the Water Environment Federation in 1993. He is a member of NAE, ASCE, ACS, AAEE, AWWA, WPCF, ASLO, AEEP, Tau Beta Pi, Chi Epsilon, and Sigma Xi. He has served as Director, Vice President, and President of the Association of Environmental Engineering Professors. Dr. O'Melia is a member of the EPA Science Advisory Board's Drinking Water Committee and the Water Science and Technology Board of the National Research Council. He is presently chairing the NRC Committee on Watershed Management for New York City.

The inaugural speaker (Spring 2002) in this lecture series was Dr. Perry L. McCarty of Stanford University. Dr. McCarty is the Silas H. Palmer Professor Emeritus of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford and is the Director of the EPA sponsored Western Region Hazardous Substance Research Center. He was elected to membership in the National Academy of Engineering in 1977 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1996. He received the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement in 1992 and the Clarke Prize for Outstanding Achievements in Water Science and Technology in 1997. Dr. McCarty has over 300 publications and is coauthor of the textbooks Chemistry for Environmental Engineering and Environmental Biotechnology - Principles and Applications. Among his other awards are an honorary Doctorate from the Colorado School of Mines, Honorary membership in the American Water Works Association and the Water Environment Federation, and Fellow with the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Microbiology.

His research interests have been in biological processes for the control of environmental contaminants. His early research was on anaerobic treatment processes, biological processes for nitrogen removal, and biological degradation of hazardous chemicals. Current interests are on aerobic and anaerobic biological processes for control of chlorinated solvents, advanced wastewater treatment processes, and the movement, fate, and control of groundwater contaminants.

Dr. McCarty's talk was entitled "Precautionary Approach for Toxic Chemicals in the Environment - Experience and Concepts in the Making."
Abstract. While man-made (anthropogenic) chemicals have greatly improved the quality of life over the past half century, they also have been the root of numerous human health and environmental problems of local to global scale. Examples of problem chemicals are extensive, and include synthetic detergents, pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), chlorinated solvents, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), methyltertiarybutyl ether (MTBE), and perchlorates. Our use, or in some cases byproduct production, of compounds of natural origin, such as benzene, dioxin, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and methyl mercury have also created significant environmental difficulties. Some compounds, such as DDT, PCBs, CFCs, and MTBE, were designed to help solve environmental problems resulting from the chemicals they replaced, such as disease, fire hazard, toxicity, and air pollution, yet resulted in their own set of difficulties, which were generally unforeseen at the time of their production and widespread distribution. As yet, we have been unable to successfully predict the environmental fate and affects of many new chemicals, often because the affects are subtle, ecosystems are complex, and our understanding of the many chemical, physical, and biological linkages in the ecosystems comprising the Earth is far from adequate. What is the nature of this dilemma, and what can be done about it? The environmental problems resulting from anthropogenic chemicals, the difficulties in forecasting consequences from their introduction, and possible approaches to benign chemical design will be discussed.