Professor Catherine Peters has been appointed to serve a three year term on the EPA’s Science Advisory Board Environmental Engineering Committee.   The Science Advisory board provides scientific advice to the EPA administrator and several Congressional committees, including the senate committee on Environment and Public Works and House of Representative Committees on Science and Technology, Interstate and Foreign Commerce, and Public Works and Transportation.

The board is comprised of scientists, engineers and economists who are experts in their fields and are not employed by the federal government.

Professor Peters was awarded a joint Ph.D. by Carnegie Mellon University in Civil Engineering and in Engineering and Public Policy. After this she was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Michigan in the area of Environmental and Water Resources Engineering. She also holds an M.S. from Carnegie Mellon University in Civil Engineering and a B.S.E. from the University of Michigan in Chemical Engineering.

Recent awards include the AEESP Distinguished Service Award, presented for service as President of AEESP (2002-2003) and for service on the AEESP Board of Directors (2000-2004); Educator of the Year, presented by the New Jersey Section ASCE to an outstanding educator who has contributed substantially to the field of civil engineering.

Dr. Peters works in the areas of environmental chemistry and environmental risk assessment. She is particularly interested in reactions kinetics, and her work typically combines laboratory experimentation with mathematical modeling to infer and simulate reaction rates for a variety of environmental systems. She and her research group are currently studying the geochemical reactions that are important for geological storage of CO2. She has also addressed research problems involving contamination of water and soils with organic pollutants, particularly non-aqueous phase liquids (NAPLs) containing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.