Just call me the Garbage Maiden!

Demi, Chemical Engineer, Sustainable Waste Management Research

Usually when I tell someone that I am a chemical engineer, they are impressed and say things like You must be really smart and That is a tough area to go into. After the kind compliments, though, the question that immediately follows without fail is: What exactly does a chemical engineer do?

I have had this Encounter more times than I can count and as a result, I have come to the realize that although the general public respects the engineering profession, the majority is not clear on what it is exactly that engineers do. This common Encounter inspired me to dedicate a series in Encounters for our 9 to 5'er artists who are also engineers to share what it is they do in their professions. My hope is that through this series we will not only educate the general public about engineering but we will also expose the next generation interested in engineering and science to the different professional avenues they can explore in this field.

I have a Bachelors and a Masters degree in chemical engineering, which may sound prestigious or fancy to some, but in my family, I am referred to as the Garbage Maiden.

Why you may ask? Well, the answer is quite simple: it is because my professional career is all about trash, literally. I am the Associate Director of a university research center that conducts research on recovering materials and energy from garbage.

Although Americans recycle and compost, more than half of the garbage we generate in the US is still landfilled. Some of that garbage ends up in landfills because we, as waste generators, did not do our part by recycling or composting correctly. However, most of the garbage in landfills is sent there because it cannot be recycled or composted either due to the lack of technology or due to the market. The research center that I work at looks into the other piece of the waste sustainability pie which is thermal conversion.

Thermal conversion reduces the volume of solid waste that we generate by 90% and in the process, we extract energy and materials from the waste. In my job as Associate Director, I oversee industry applied research conducted by professionals and students that innovates and advances the field of energy from waste. Our research ranges from the laboratory to pilot plants and we analyze technologies in terms of performance and environmental impact.

I love my job because I get to collaborate with engineers developing new up and coming technologies in industry and at the same time, I get to mentor talented and curious engineering students who conduct the innovative research. For someone who has always been obsessed with glitz and glamour, I never would have imagined that I would find my calling in garbage. But in a world where we are always thinking about the latest and newest, I find myself more captivated by the old and disposed and as a chemical engineer, I find it truly fascinating how these technologies can continually and optimally operate when their feedstock is always changing, depending on things such as geography, GDP, and time of year.

In conclusion, with my chemical engineering degree, I traveled down the path of academic research and became the Garbage Maiden and in the end, there is no one else I would rather be.