Grad Students :: Gardner :: ERG :: Civil Engineering

After attaining her bachelor's in 2001 at UNH with a degree in Environmental Engineering - Municipal Processes, Deana Aulisio continued working and studying with the Environmental Research Group, finishing her masters in sediment remediation with Dr. Kevin Gardner in 2003 and beginning her PhD research with him in the Natural Resources Earth System Science (NRESS) discipline in the fall of 2008. Always a strong advocate for the environment, she recently became interested more specifically in energy conservation and alternatives. Over the summer and fall of 2008, Deana undertook a temporary position at the NHDES Air Resources Division assisting the Energy Task Force in developing their Climate Change Action Plan for Governor Lynch.

Last year, Deana contacted a local biofuel distribution company, Simply Green, to purchase biodiesel for her Green VW Golf. After discussing her desire to focus her PhD research on biofuels, they decided to collaborate on finding more sustainable feedstock solutions, particularly algae grown with waste resources. Currently, they are seeking funding to begin this research together with a pilot facility. It is hopeful that the algae pilot will make use of the CO2 waste stream at Rochester's Waste Management Turnkey landfill, which currently sends CH4 to UNH for cogeneration of 90% of the University's heat and power. With data from the pilot plant, it is possible to perform a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to determine the environmental impacts of growing algae for biofuel on the NH Seacoast. The project is a multi-disciplinary collaboration of industry, academia, government, and the public.

Irina Calante was born in Moscow, Russia and grew up in Cuba. She obtained a Bachelors of Science in Civil Engineering at Florida International University, Miami, Florida. Irina received her master's degree in Environmental Engineering from UNH while working in the Environmental Research Group (ERG) with Dr. Kevin Gardner on in-situ remediation of contaminated marine sediments.

Her topic of research was the investigation of the kinetics of polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) dechlorination with different reducers by determining rate limiting factors through sediment characterization, rate of reaction, as well as conducting a small pilot scale study.

Cyndy Carlson Cyndy Carlson is a doctoral student in the Natural Resouces and Earth Systems Science program. At UNH she will be evaluating the efficacy of sustainability metrics for transportation and the built environment, investigating existing transportation and built environment schemes in several case study communities, and verifying recommended metrics through analysis of detailed data for alternative case study communities. These infrastructures will provide a good model for investigating sustainability metrics of other infrastructures (drinking water, waste water, energy production) in future work. The selected transportation and built environment metrics will be packaged such that local planners can use them to analyze qualitative and quantitative metrics for their own community, and to educate residents and public officials on potential impacts of various scenarios.

Cyndy received her undergraduate in Civil Engineering from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and a Masters in Engineering from Dartmouth College. She then worked for 10 years as a water resources engineer, managing and implementing environmental and water resources projects locally in New England, as well as abroad in the Middle East and the Far East, before returning to school at UNH.

Alberta Carpenter (Birdie) recently completed her doctorate in Environmental Engineering. She received a B.S. in Ocean Engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy. Following her naval service, she worked for 3 ½ years in solid waste management in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. She received her M.S. in Environmental Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA. Her dissertation work involved the use of Life Cycle Assessment for the Sustainable Management of Industrial By-products, which included case studies utilizing coal combustion products (CCPs) for roadway construction on a local and regional scale as well as a regional analysis of the use of construction and demolition (C&D) wood combustion for energy recovery. She is currently assessing the implications of allocating initial use impacts for CCPs as well as starting a validation process for the Pavement Life Cycle Assessment Tool for Environmental and Economics Effects (PaLATE) for the Recycled Materials Resource Center. In her spare time, Birdie enjoys yoga, many outdoor activities, reading and cooking.

Bob received a B.S. in Soil Science from UNH in 1997. For his Masters, he studied the chemical weathering of recycled materials and its impact on leaching. After completing his course work and research, which included collaboration with Dr. Takayuki Shimaoka of Kyushu University in Japan, Bob spent some time working for the private sector, got married, and started family. Now a proud father of three, Bob returned to UNH in May 2008 and successfully defend his thesis.

Scott Cloutier is a proud native of New Hampshire and grew up in Rochester. Once he graduated high school, he entered the United States Navy for six years where he was a weapons systems electronics technician. He specialized in radars and missile protection of the USS Kauffman (FFG-59). After his service, he spent a year working at a power plant. Through his experiences in the Navy and the power plant, he quickly realized that the environment was in need of help. He moved to Ukiah, California and attended Mendocino College where he gained knowledge and insight relative to the environment and also played college basketball. He then returned to New Hampshire to attend the University of New Hampshire and received his BS in Environmental Engineering in May of 2008.

He is now a graduate student and research assistant studying the most effective, environmentally sustainable, and economically feasible method of providing in-situ degradation, sequestration, treatment and removals of DDT (DichloroDiphenylTrichloroethane) in wetlands sediments. DDT is a highly hydrophobic organochlorine insecticide that was used heavily after World War II and is still used today in third world countries. DDT is an endocrine disruptor and has also been proven to cause cancer.

Once this research is complete, Scott will obtain his Masters of Science in Civil Engineering and will pursue a PhD in the area of Green Engineering and Sustainability. He hopes to someday be a college professor, consultant, author, and is forever motivated to change the direction in which current human practices are sending the Earth. Scott will change the world.

Carolina Gonzalez was born in San Salvador, El Salvador. She received her B.S. in Environmental Technology Management from the University of Mobile, Latin-American campus in Nicaragua. After graduating she worked at the Ministry of Environment of El Salvador in the area of industrial licensing for three years. For her master's degree, Carolina worked on RMRC Project 31, Permeable Reactive Barriers for Contaminant Control in Beneficial Use Applications in Highways, with Dr. Taylor Eighmy and Dr. Kevin Gardner. The project's aim was to develope a new technology that can use permeable reactive barriers below large recycled materials applications (road base, embankments) to intercept contaminants that may leach at low levels. The research focused on removal kinetics, characterization of reaction mechanisms, and hydrodynamic fate/transport modeling with various synthetic apatites .

Emese Hadnagy received her doctorate in Civil Engineering at UNH in 2008. She received a B.S. and an M.S. in Civil Engineering from the Technical University of Budapest, Hungary, and an M.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH. For her Master's degree in Hungary, she worked on the water budget and nutrient (nitrogen and phosphorus) cycling in the Danube watershed using a global hydrology model. Her Master’s research at UNH involved studying the removal of arsenic from drinking water by various adsorbent materials. Her doctoral recearch was on the dechlorination of polychlorinated biphenyls in pure systems and sediments by Mg/Pd bimetallic particles.

Jennifer Leipold graduated from the University of New Hampshire's Whittemore School of Business in May 2001. She worked for 2.5 years before deciding to come back to UNH to get her master's degree in the Civil Engineering Department with the Environmental Research Group. With her advisor, Kevin Gardner, Jenn studied the capacity of alkaline waste materials such as recycled concrete fines to uptake carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Jenn's research related to the construction and demolition of concrete roadbeds and curbing, buildings, bridge supports, and airport runways creates multiple waste streams including recycled concrete fines (RCF), metal, wood, and carbon dioxide gas (CO2).

Philip is currently a PhD student in Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences at the University of New Hampshire. He studied chemistry in Germany and as an ERASMUS student in Scotland and received a diploma in chemistry from the University of Kiel in early 2007. Philip undertook his thesis research at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel in the field of marine biogeochemistry focusing on stable nitrogen isotopes. Before moving to New Hampshire, he worked for 5 months as an intern with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Bangkok, Thailand, and spent another year studying and working in China and South Korea.

As a doctoral student, Philip is looking at biochemical and thermochemical processes capable of converting the biodegradable fraction of municipal solid waste into platform chemicals that can be used to further produce polymers and biomaterials. He is carrying out a comparative systems analysis using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as a tool to analyze the efficiency of these routes with regard to their carbon and energy balance and their system-wide environmental impacts and is looking at technological and economic implications of these processes. Philip hopes that results of this study will add to the current debate on sustainable biomass utilization and to establish future supply chains for green and sustainable chemical products.

Keywords: Sustainability, Systems Thinking, LCA, Bio-refineries, Platform Molecules, Green Chemistry, Municipal Solid Waste

Linda Rauch her Master's degree in Environmental Engineering. She graduated from McGill university in 1995 with a B.Eng. in Chemical Engineering. She spent 8 years working in the biotechnology industry before deciding to return to school to pursue her interest in environmental work.

Her research work involved the evaluation of a treatment method for polychloronaphthalene and dioxins in contaminated sediments

Shannon Rogers is a doctoral student in the Natural Resources and Earth Systems Science program and she is studying sustainable science and engineering issues. Her specific dissertation research is focusing on measuring sustainability in communities, including social, built, and transportation infrastructures. The final outcome of the work will provide methods and measures for more sustainable planning and development. This work is collaborative and interdisciplinary as it is at the intersection of social science, engineering, and policy.

Shannon has an undergraduate degree in environmental studies from Dartmouth College and a master's of science degree in Resource Administration and Management from UNH. She loves the outdoors and enjoys most sports especially golf, soccer, and running.

Bhawana Sharma received her Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering. Prior to joining the doctoral program at UNH, she completed a Master of Technology in Environmental Engineering and Management from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India in July 2004. She also holds a Master of Science degree in Environmental Science and a Bachelor of Science degree in Life Sciences from University of Rajasthan, Jaipur, India. Her Master's research involved investigations on arsenic mobility in subsurface environment. The objective of her Master's thesis was to test a hypothesis concerning arsenic sequestration by metallic iron in the absence of oxygen. She also worked as a Junior Research Fellow in Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, India, in a project titled, "Assessment of Ozone treatment as a polishing step for a full-scale anaerobic reactor effluent." Her other research interests included the study of the principles and design of waste water treatment and disposal systems. Her doctoral research focused on the preliminary investigation of PAH adsorption on organoclays and activated carbon.

Christopher received his Master's degree while working on contaminant availability from estuarine sediment under different environmental conditions. He graduated from the University of Vermont in 1998 with a B.A. in Chemistry. After graduating from UVM, he worked for nine months at Resource Laboratories, Inc. in Portsmouth, NH as a lab tech. In January 1999, he joined the Peace Corps as a secondary school teacher in Papua New Guinea. He taught Chemistry, Math, Biology, and Computer Science. In his spare time he enjoys surfing, playing guitar and outdoor activities.

Don is working on his Master’s degree in Environmental Engineering. He received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Don worked 25 years in the telecommunication industry filling billets in metallization, pattern generation, team building facilitation and transportation packaging. After finding early retirement unfulfilling, he decided to return to school to pursue his love of the environment. Don is an avid boater with a goal of helping to improve the coastal environment.

His research focuses on sediment sampling with an emphasis on heavy metal contamination in pore water. A secondary objective is to establish a method to evaluate the effectiveness of geotextile reactive mats in sequestering metals. Don has been examining a diffusion sampling device or peeper. The peeper will produce an equilibrated sample of the sediment pore water. He has also been looking at the push point sampling device that yields a pore water sample of the current conditions.