Let's Talk Garbage!

Now that I have reached the conclusion of Encounters, I am off to new beginnings with my other passion in life: garbage. As some of you may know, I am a chemical engineer who has been working in the field of waste management for the past 6 years and I am passionate about technical education of the public on waste sustainability. The following is a pilot episode of an educational series that I may develop called, Let’s Talk Garbage! Enjoy!

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel!

If you want to learn more about waste sustainability, I encourage you to check out these great educational resources:

• Be Waste Wise

• WTERT - Columbia University

• The Environmental Research and Education Foundation
  

Managing the Clean-Up of Polluted Sites

Christos, Chemical Engineer

I am a chemical engineer and I work in the field of environmental protection managing the cleanup of highly polluted sites.  

Because of the lack of environmental regulation in the US until the 1970s, industrial discharges caused widespread and persistent contamination in the soil, in the groundwater and in surface water bodies in the areas where industries operated.  This contamination can have serious effects on the health of people that live near these areas and it also can have adverse effects on the ecology of the area.  

It is my job, for a given site, to identify the source of contamination, to determine how it spreads in the environment and how far it has traveled from its original source (through the surface water and groundwater), to determine whether human populations could come in contact with the contamination and, if so, what are the health risks to them (also what are the risks to ecological species) and, finally, to establish a plan of action, that employs several technologies, for cleaning up the polluted site so as to reduce those risks.   

For accomplishing these goals, I use scientific and engineering principles from my own training and I also utilize the knowledge and expertise of other scientists and engineers with whom I collaborate.  In managing a project, I have the ultimate responsibility to assemble and organize all the necessary information that we gather through field tests.  We use that information to draw conclusions about the extent of the contamination and the risks that it poses to human health and the environment. In the end, it is my job to come up with a plan of action to clean up the polluted site. I select specific technologies that address the specific type of contamination that is found at a given site. I do the planning and, eventually, supervise the cleanup actions in the field to make sure that the work is executed according to the plan and that the cleanup goals are achieved.

A central part of the work that I do is communicating, in easily understood terms, to the affected community, the contamination problem, the risk that it presents, and the actions that we are taking to reduce that risk. I would venture to say that this kind of interaction with the community is one of the most satisfying elements of my job and the one that, in the end, gives meaning to all the work that I do. 

Bridging the Gap between Engineering and Medicine

Joanna Ma, Biomedical Engineer

I call myself a user-centric biomedical engineer.  A biomedical engineer works on designing systems and products for healthcare purposes (i.e. implants, diagnostic machines, medical imaging), and is the “translator” who closes the gap between engineering and medicine.  Holding a Bachelors and Masters degree in Biomedical Engineering, my academic career has been rather interdisciplinary.  A typical curriculum consists of learning the basics of each discipline (i.e. mechanical, electrical, chemical engineering as well as material and computer science), and then specializing in a field of study: biomechanics, tissue engineering, biomaterials, neuroscience, medical imaging.  Traditionally, biomedical engineers work at biotech, pharma, and medical device companies either in R&D quality or project management.

Wanting a position in both user experience and product design, I took a very long-winded route to get to where I am today.  Despite my background, companies traditionally hire mechanical and electrical engineers for the positions I was looking for.  I ultimately want to work on projects where I can change things in healthcare from a user’s perspective.  I currently work as a hardware engineer at a biotech startup in San Francisco that makes bioprinters.  These bioprinters help researchers replicate human responses in a culture plate.  In my day-to day, I work on everything from hardware, documentation, user testing, project management and design work.  It’s been amazing to see how much user focus has changed in healthcare just over the last few years. 

If you want to become a biomedical engineer but want to work on hardware, I’d recommend picking one of the more traditional disciplines, such as mechanical and electrical engineering, and then specializing in a biomedical-related study later on.  Don’t be afraid to start networking early, to ask questions, and to never give up!  I’ve worked a lot of volunteer positions to get where I am today, but all of these experiences make up my career today and I am incredibly grateful for it.

Engineering Carbon Material Sustainability: My Contribution as a Chemical Engineering Researcher

Jeff LeBlanc, Chemical engineering PhD candidate, Carbon sustainability

A general description of what I do as a chemical engineer is converting one raw material into another material which could serve as a final product itself or as a precursor material for another process.  Typically, we do this by decomposing the material to some elementary form so that it may then be tailored to a certain function.  Carbon, for example, is something that we can do a lot of things with.

As a researcher, I am trying to work towards producing carbon material sustainably so that it may be used as a template for building other products.  By utilizing properties of the different physical forms of carbon, we can make an enormously wide range of tools from electronics to the strongest materials on the planet.  In addition, carbon can be functionalized to solve air and water pollution problems or even be mixed into soil to enhance crop yields.

We have the ability to create a lot of value from making carbon materials from things that have no value to society and are considered waste, like used plastic bags or nut shells.  One of my hopes is for people to realize this potential and strive to do something smart with the waste produced by civilization.  We have much better options than what we are currently doing with it. 

A Day in the Life of An Engineer in Construction

Danielle, Civil Engineer, Construction Industry

I work as a civil engineer for a construction company in New York City.  My duties at work can vary dramatically day to day depending on my company’s needs.  Some days my time is consumed with paperwork items, such as submittals (making sure that anything we’re using on the job is approved or that the layout for certain equipment is correct), work plans (documents which help to explain the methodology behind how we will be completing each work task), or tracking logs (tracking correspondence between my company and any other entity).

Other days, my time is spent out on the job site with the workers building the project.  On these days, I get to assist in handling unforeseen issues such as dealing with and repairing deteriorating concrete that was initially assumed viable for use or revising and improving specific work task methodologies to reduce inefficiencies on the job.  I also am in charge of tracking construction progress, such as tracking how much linear feet of piping was installed or how much concrete was demolished for replacement, and I create design drawings using computer software programs. 

As a civil engineer in construction, what I love about my job is that every day brings something different and exciting and the projects that I work on help to improve the quality of life for so many people in their day to day lives.

                                               Here I am on site with one of my colleagues

One of the projects that I work on in my job is repairing and improving the train tunnels in NYC.  Preserving our NYC infrastructure is so important!

The Engineering Behind The Music

Akshay Anantapadmanabhan, Engineer turned Professional Musician, Music Technology

I applied for engineering schools simply because I thought I was good at math and physics.  While I did not know what electrical engineering was when I applied for college, my experiences during undergraduate and graduate school definitely made me realize the importance of my major and how it affects people’s lives daily.  Like the majority of engineering graduates in the world, I was recruited by a company that was in an industry outside engineering – and I chose to roll with it!  The two greatest takeaways I captured from working on the engineering and software teams of a wealth management firm was 1) engineering can be applied to any field – it is not just a major but it is a form of thinking 2) I do not belong at a 9-5 job!

These were probably my two most impactful epiphanies in my life (so far) because they have led me to where I am today – pursuing my passion of music as a career.  Rightly so I guess, since I started learning music much much much before I started learning engineering!  However, even today I continue to publish papers in international academic journals in collaborations with different universities in the space of music technology (specifically at the intersection of music and signal processing, which was my major in college).  I am happy to have published one of the first signal processing papers on the mridangam and kanjira.  This is the literal side of my engineering background that I am still in touch with, but the soul of engineering is in the thought of the engineer – and that I use every single day! 

I think people generally pin music as far away from engineering as possible but I don’t see it that way.  My approach to my music projects, the thought process that goes behind preparing for concerts, the method to practice and learn and essentially set up a more efficient life as a musician are all influenced by my engineering background.  I definitely have my experiences at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art to thank for all of this.  And with that, I would like to say that engineering is probably one of the most versatile fields if you can look beyond the book – engineers CAN be anyone! 

Paving the Future for the Internet of Things

Erick Chang, Chemical Engineer turned App Developer

I majored in Chemical Engineering and graduated with a Bachelor’s in 2011.  With no interest in getting a higher degree, I jumped right into the work force and was part of an engineering team at a well-known pharmaceutical company developing drugs for cancer treatment.  I was at the company for about 4 years and then last year, I decided to leave and become an Android developer at a start-up in Brooklyn making apps.  Thus far, I have made contributions to apps for different companies ranging from small start-ups to multi-million dollar corporations.

Since sophomore year of high school, I knew to some degree that I was going to do engineering because “Problem solving through math and science” was what I had a knack for.  Pursuing a PhD, however, was out of the question for me since I was not a big fan of the idea of extending my years in an academic setting.

Operating systems, like Android, are quickly paving the future of a world of internet connected everything (internet of things or IoT is a buzzword we hear a lot) and the line separating a computer from a non-computer is going to become very blurry.  A smartphone is really no longer a phone – it is most definitely a pocket computer.  Watches are the next thing that are getting a promotion to computer-status and there is more to come.  It is a future I am excited to go all-in for and I hope to create products that bring a lot of value – either as entertainment or functional – to people’s lives.   

Waste Ash Fuel Cells & Quantum Dot Solar Panels: My Life as a Chemical Engineering PhD

Megan Webster, Chemical Engineering PhD candidate, Alternative Energy

It was a long and winding road that led me to engineering, through ambitions to be a lawyer, history teacher, and a chemist until finally I settled upon chemical engineering. Throughout this path, I had a profound interest in the environment and in “green” energy, which eventually served as the guiding force that led me to a university in New York City and the pursuit of a PhD in Chemical Engineering. During my time at my university—just under two years now—I have focused my research efforts on alternative energy technologies because I believe it is a revolution that must happen within our generation.

                                             The glamorous life as a PhD student

For the past year, my research project has focused on using ash from combustion as a potential electrode material for fuel cells. For the non-engineers in the audience, combustion ash is a waste by-product that results when power plants incinerate material to produce energy; not everything can be incinerated and what is leftover is called ash.  If disposed of in a landfill, ash can leach into the soil. Therefore, a significant amount of research goes into finding ways to treat the ash to make it safe to dispose of and to finding useful applications for the ash.  There is significant potential for reuse of ash in terms of the metals that can be recovered from it as well as for material applications.  

My work currently focuses on turning the ash we get from the power plants into an electrode, which is a component in a battery. Thus far, we have found some very interesting results and these are scheduled to be presented at two conferences coming up in April and June.

Here is the ash that I work with in my fuel cell research.  Part of my research is to understand how the ash behaves in wet environments.

Ultimately, I hope to work with solar energy technology and at the moment, I am working on a proposal with my advisors for a grant that would allow us to work on quantum dots for solar cell applications. Quantum dots are extremely small clusters of atoms that behave in very interesting ways that defy the expectations of macroscopic matter. They may be the key to increasing the current 30% efficiency limit of traditional photovoltaic solar cells.

All that is certain for now is that it will be a busy and fascinating three more years as I work toward my PhD. 

Go green! : The Engineering behind Renewable Energy

Wei Dai, Mechanical Engineer, Wind Turbine Industry:

I studied mechanical engineering and landed a job in the wind turbine manufacturing industry.  To be very clear, I became an engineer because 1) I love Legos 2) I am from a Chinese family that relentlessly pushed my mathematic skills in order to land a practical job.

Since my company is funded from China, I do more than engineering and often participate in cross cultural business management.  The ultimate goal in the industry I am in is to lower the cost of wind energy.  Go green!  The impact of my job is both rewarding and absolutely necessary to today’s society.  If we can make the wind energy supply chain cheap, we can reduce the use of fossil fuel.

My advice for the younger generation going into engineering is to never sacrifice opportunity for safety.  To be a good engineer requires a disciplined but curious mind, and despite all the practicality involved in one’s education, an engineering student must never stop pushing the boundary of what is possible.  This is an area in which artists can really teach us something!

Here I am in my job climbing up the base of a wind turbine!

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.  

Here I am at a waste facility!

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.