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National Academy of Engineering Honors STAR Grantees
Friday, March 25, 2004
The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) 
recently elected four Science to Achieve Results (STAR) grantees as members of its prestigious organization. The STAR grantees are part of a group of 74 new members and 10 foreign associates.
Being elected to the NAE is among the highest professional distinctions accorded an engineer. Academy membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to "engineering research, practice, or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature" and to the "pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education."
The following EPA STAR grantees are NAE Members-Elect:
Dr. Joseph M. DeSimone, William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Dr. DeSimone was elected to the NAE “for the development of environmentally friendly chemistries and processes for the synthesis of materials, especially new fluoropolymers.” As a STAR grantee, he has developed and marketed a surfactant that dissolves in carbon dioxide (CO2), eliminating the use of harmful organic solvents in dry cleaning. He is now working on a project to develop alternative solvents for the manufacture of integrated circuits in the microelectronics industry.
Technical breakthroughs led by Dr. DeSimone indicate that supercriticial CO2 could be the most commonly used solvent of the 21st century. He has proven that CO2 is an attractive alternative solvent for a wide range of chemical and industrial manufacturing processes because it is nontoxic, inexpensive, widely available and environmentally benign.
Dr. DeSimone holds 93 patents and has authored 188 publications.
Dominic M. Di Toro, Distinguished Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Delaware, Newark. Dr. Di Toro was elected “for leadership in the development and application of mathematical models for establishing water-quality criteria and making management decisions.”
In his work as a STAR grantee, Dr. Di Toro developed and validated a model that indicated the release of potentially toxic metals from contaminated sediments to the overlying water. He worked with cadmium, copper, nickel, lead, and zinc, all of which are highly insoluble.
Dr. Di Toro has specialized in the development and application of mathematical and statistical models to stream, lake, estuarine, and coastal water and sediment-quality problems. He has published over one hundred technical papers, as well as Sediment Flux Modeling, published by J. Wiley & Sons. He has been an expert consultant, principal investigator, and project manager on numerous water quality studies for industry, research foundations, and government agencies. Recently his work has focused on the development of water and sediment-quality criteria for the EPA, sediment flux models for nutrients and metals, and integrated hydrodynamic, sediment transport and water quality models.
James O. Leckie, Peck Class of 1906 Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California. Dr. Leckie was elected to the NAE “for advances in our understanding of metal and oxyanion adsorption on environmental surfaces that have led to novel strategies for soil and groundwater remediation.”
As an investigator with the STAR-funded Western Region Hazardous Substance Research Center (HSRC), Dr. Leckie completed several research projects. In 1989, he began by developing an experimental database and mathematical model for mass-transfer-limited adsorption of trace metals onto porous particles. This project was followed in the early 1990s by a study investigating the optimal conditions for producing ceramic from nickel-contaminated clay. In the mid-1990s, he developed an empirical database and mathematical model for trace element adsorption onto backed beds of porous alumina particles. This led to a study beginning in 1999 in which Leckie focused on the removal of arsenic from contaminated water using this adsorption. In addition to his work at the HSRC, Dr. Leckie received a STAR grant to develop a model for measuring cumulative (multiple pesticides with the same toxicological endpoint) and aggregate (dermal, inhalation and ingestion routes) exposure and intake dose estimates for young children.
Dr. Leckie is an environmental chemist interested in the application of chemical principles to the study of pollutant behavior in natural aquatic systems and in engineered processes. His research has included studies of the transport and fate of radionuclides in ground water, rivers, lakes and near-coastal marine environments. In addition, he is researching how humans become exposed to chemicals, emphasizing dermal exposure of children to pesticides. Dr. Leckie is the Principal Investigator on the Clean Water Programme, a large multidisciplinary research effort evaluating aspects of water reclamation and recycle in Singapore. In addition, he is the Co-Director of the Singapore Stanford Partnership, an innovative collaborative educational experiment with Singapore to establish a preeminent graduate teaching and research program in environmental engineering and science.
Dr. Leckie was a Fulbright Fellow in 1979-1980. He also received the Rudolf Hering Medal of the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1981.
Danny David Reible, Bettie Margaret Smith Chair in Environmental Health Engineering, Professor of Environmental Engineering , University of Texas, Austin. Dr. Reible’s election citation states “for the development of widely used methods of managing contaminated sediments.”
As Director of the STAR-funded Hazardous Substance Research Center/South and Southwest, Dr. Reible’s work is providing basic and applied research, technology transfer, and community outreach that addresses hazardous substance problems, especially the engineering management of contaminated sediments and other problems of special interest to communities within EPA Regions 4 and 6. The Center is a consortium of several universities including Louisiana State University, Rice University, Texas A&M University, Georgia Tech and the University of Texas at Austin.
In addition to his Center responsibilities, Dr. Reible has initiated several projects at the University of Texas focusing on a range of issues: organoclay as a sediment treatment barrier, innovative monitoring activities for the Anacostia Active Capping Demonstration, and bioavailability of desorption-resistant contaminants. Recently, he led the development of a NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Assessment and Remediation of Contaminated Sediments to be held in May in Bratislava, Slovak Republic.
Dr. Reible is a Diplomate of the American Academy of Environmental Engineers. He is the recipient of the 2002 Charles E. Coates Award from the American Chemical Society/American Institute of Chemical Engineering, the 2001 Lawrence K. Cecil Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and the 1986 New Engineering Educator Excellence Award from the American Society of Engineering Education. Dr. Reible has authored or edited 4 books, 20 book chapters, and 76 refereed journal papers.