Lisa Alvarez-Cohen, PhD, a professor of environmental engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, will give the Ninth Annual Ryckman Lecture at 1:30 p.m. Friday, April 19.
Alvarez-Cohen, the Fred and Claire Sauer Professor and past chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley, will speak on “From Individuals to Community: A Molecular-Based Systems Approach to Understanding Bioremediation.” The lecture, in the Stephen F. and Camilla T. Brauer Hall, Room 12, is free and open to the public, though RSVP is requested.
Her research areas include environmental microbiology and ecology, biotransformation and fate of environmental contaminants, and developing molecular and isotopic techniques for studying microbial ecology of environmental microbial communities. She teaches courses in environmental microbiology, environmental engineering and biological process engineering, and has co-written an undergraduate textbook titled Environmental Engineering Science.
The School of Engineering & Applied Science inaugurated the Rick and Betty Ryckman Lecture Series in 2003 to promote environmental engineering science education. This series pays tribute to De Vere W. “Rick” Ryckman, who was the founding director of Washington University’s environmental engineering science program, and his wife, Betty Ryckman, who generously opened her home to the many students of this program and their families.
In the mid-1950s, Ryckman built a top program in the new field of environmental engineering. He died in 2004.