Professor
Catherine Koshland
Studies Energy and Pollution Issues
Dr. Catherine Koshland
Professor, School of Public Health
University of California, Berkeley
In 1985 the University of California at Berkeley added an unusual member to its faculty. Catherine Koshland, with a doctorate in mechanical engineering, has had anything but a typical career path. Her undergraduate degree is in Fine Arts from Haverford College in Pennsylvania, where she studied painting and social sciences, scrupulously avoiding all math and science courses. In 1973, at the height of the Energy Crisis in the United States, Koshland was working for a forerunner of the Department of Energy called the Office of Coal Research in Washington D.C. She became intrigued by the science and policy issues related to the delicate state of the nation's energy situation. After moving to Palo Alto, California, Koshland consulted Bill Reynolds, Chair of the Mechanical Engineering Department and Director of the Stanford Energy Institute, and expressed interest in a career that considered energy issues. Taking his advice, she enrolled in Stanford University, completing two years of undergraduate science and engineering. In 1978 Koshland entered the Ph.D. program in mechanical engineering. Her dissertation revolved around very classical mechanical engineering, examining combustion of interacting droplets and the rate at which the interaction affects the rate at which they burn. "My motivation became twofold," Koshland explained. "As I became more involved with some policy questions regarding energy and pollution issues, I realized I needed to have a real understanding of the science that surrounded the problem."
Upon completion of her doctorate, Catherine Koshland obtained a faculty appointment in the School of Public Health at UC Berkeley. "They wanted a candidate who had classical training in mechanical or chemical engineering, but someone who was willing to venture into cross or interdisciplinary activities," Koshland said. "That was appealing to me." She accepted the position, and began looking at air pollution questions, from both an engineering and a public health perspective. "A great deal of the work I do now is motivated by the human health effects," says Professor Koshland. "With the combustion of fuels, there's a trade-off between energy issues and pollution issues. I've started to address environmental issues on a broader scope, looking at the way we approach both teaching and research on the environment, energy, and health. These issues span across disciplines, departments and colleges."
One of Professor Koshland's research projects addresses an industrial ecology issue and the energy and environmental implications or trade-offs of recovering and reusing materials instead of using additional natural resources. Lloyd Connelly , a UC TSR&TP trainee, is working under Koshland's supervision to explore how a manufacturing process and its products and waste should be considered in terms of the risks of exposure to humans and ecosystems, as well as its energy efficiency. They hope to identify economically favorable industrial designs and material choices that can reduce or eliminate toxic byproducts when industries recycle or reuse energy sources. A long range goal of this project is to use the information they gather in a framework to evaluate its utility in the design of cleaner manufacturing processes.
Another research project of Koshland's focuses on the chemistry involved in combustion. Koshland's Combustion Byproducts Group includes Professor Robert Sawyer, Emeritus Professor in Mechanical Engineering and Professor in the Graduate School, and Dr. Don Lucas of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. Dr. Catherine Koshland feels that working as a team on interdisciplinary problems engenders new approaches and enables students to see the many ways in which complex problems can be addressed. Koshland's research team has focused on many variables that can be adjusted to affect the efficiency of an incinerator such as temperature (800-1200 degrees K, post-flame range), flow of combustion material, and oxygen concentration. They have documented that even when the parent compounds from the combustion materials are destroyed efficiently, there can be by-product compounds that are created in the process. Koshland hypothesizes that most of the by-products that are generated don't react within the flame zone, but instead are formed in an area identified as a post-flame region. Here, there is plenty of oxygen, exhaust gases and pure compound, and Koshland suspects that this is where most of the by-products are formed. "One of the things we've found is that many of the parent substances themselves may be destroyed, but many of those substances produce byproducts which are more thermally stable than the parent compound," said Professor Koshland. "In some cases, the by-products are actually more toxic or carcinogenic than the original parent substance. The outcome of this research will help identify real operating conditions that have to be maintained in order to control the combustion output of toxics in any form." UC TSR&TP student Lee Anne Sgro is assisting Koshland with testing a new bench scale flow reactor. With this reactor, they can control the parameters independently of each other and will have a greater ability to see the process and its constituent stages. Since the industry standards for emission have always been based on elimination of the parent compound, this research will help identify conditions that are conducive to the release of toxic or carcinogenic by-products. If the release of by-products is deemed hazardous, regulatory agencies can address combustion control for those substances, too.
In addition to her research, Catherine Koshland teaches several different courses at UC Berkeley, including an introductory air pollution course, an engineering controls course, and an introductory graduate course in Industrial Ecology, sponsored by the Energy Resources Group of UC Berkeley. Koshland also serves her campus community as the Vice Chair of the UC Berkeley Campus Environmental Council Executive Committee. The council explores options for UC Berkeley involvement in environmental issues and collaborations. In July of 1995, Professor Koshland was elected the Wood-Calvert Professor of Engineering. She was selected for her work in toxic substances and involvement with the Campus Environmental Council.
It is obvious that Professor Koshland embraces the complexity of the issues she studies. "I think environmental issues benefit from many types of disciplines, ranging from ecology and environmental studies to physics, chemistry, health sciences and, of course, engineering," Koshland says. "A university should never concentrate all of its resources for addressing the environment into one college or school-that's a disservice. We shouldn't limit our possibilities or create artificial barriers that impede dialogue and communication. For some environmental issues, we're at critical points where we need communication the most."
| <-Sept/Oct. 1995 |