Dangerous Behavior on College Campuses
Making the Hydrogen Car Viable
Connecting Environmental Science and Public Policy
Probing the Evolution of Galaxies
Answering Fundamental Questions About the Universe
Examining Bacteria's Response to Oxidative Stress
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Connecting Environmental Science and Public Policy
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Jacqueline A. MacDonald '86 |
Jacqueline A. MacDonald '86, an assistant professor in the department of environmental sciences and engineering at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, has had a successful, albeit nonlinear, career. She has also overcome considerable personal challenges. Through the ups and downs, her commitment to environmental science has remained constant.
MacDonald originally planned to be an environmental journalist. After graduating from Bryn Mawr College with a major in mathematics, she worked briefly as an editor at a trade association. "I realized I could contribute more by going back to school to advance my science education, since I had always been more adept at math and science than at writing," she says.
MacDonald studied environmental science in civil engineering at the University of Illinois and received an M.S. degree in 1990. By this time, she had moved with her husband to Washington, D.C. She contacted Sarah Connick '84, who was working at the National Research Council, a unit of the National Academy of Sciences that advises Congress and the federal government on science policy matters. MacDonald spent nine years at NRC's Water Science and Technology Board, rising from research associate to staff officer and then serving as the board's associate director from 1997 to 1999.
Hazardous Waste and Water Quality
At NRC, MacDonald researched policy issues related to environmental remediation, water supply, and pollution control, particularly restoration of contaminated groundwater and soil, and management of drinking water. "Public policy changes happen very, very slowly," she explains. "When an environmental hazard gets a lot of press, that's your window; then you jump in with your scientific information."
While at NRC, MacDonald wrote several books on environmental policy in collaboration with scientific expert committees. Her Bryn Mawr experience served her well in this regard, she says. Though the only science she had taken at Bryn Mawr was one year of chemistry, "I had surely done a lot of writing, and assimilating large amounts of information."
During this time, MacDonald had married and become a mother. While she was pregnant with her second son, her husband was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease). Juggling her husband's round-the-clock care with work and child rearing was nearly impossible, MacDonald reflects. Her first husband, from whom she is divorced, has been on life-support machines for more than 11 years.
During this time, Bruce Alberts, then president of NAS, asked her to write a guide to NRC study management. "A lot of reports sit on a shelf and collect dust," she notes. "I had used some innovative strategies to try to disseminate the studies more broadly," such as writing articles on the findings for publication in targeted media. Her guide included suggestions on achieving a balance of expertise on committees and organizing members' tasks to achieve better time management.
In late 1999, MacDonald joined the RAND Corporation. "I decided that, rather than running studies in the name of expert committees, I'd like to be an expert myself," she explains. At RAND, she developed a research program on environmental remediation of unexploded ordnance and land mines; topics included assessing risks, technical options for clearing the hazards, and policies for improving remediation. "I had a lot of freedom to choose my topics," MacDonald says.
By this time, MacDonald had remarried and moved to Pittsburgh, where she helped RAND open a new office. She met several doctoral students and was inspired to pursue a Ph.D. herself. At age 39, she began work on a Ph.D. in engineering and public policy and in civil and environmental engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, receiving a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.
Her personal life, however, was again in turmoil. While working toward her dual Ph.D., she gave birth to a third child and later endured a second divorce.
Quantifying Risks
In 2007, she joined the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, as an assistant professor of environmental sciences and engineering. "An academic setting is the best place to be in a lifelong-learning mode," she says.
As a new faculty member, MacDonald is currently defining a research area and seeking funding. Her research focuses on using mathematics to quantify the risks of environmental contamination. In November, she led a team that traveled to the United Arab Emirates and submitted a proposal, at the request of the UAE minister for the environment, to assess and prioritize that nation's environmental health problems.
Her years at Bryn Mawr, MacDonald says, gave her a solid intellectual foundation. "I came out of Bryn Mawr knowing how to teach myself," she says. In her doctoral studies, she explains, "If I wasn't getting what the professor was saying, I could go out and find other resources to figure out what I needed to know." The rigorous Bryn Mawr curriculum also gave her the confidence to succeed in a male-dominated field and prepared her to give briefings to federal officials, members of Congress, and military leaders, MacDonald says.
In this new phase of her career, MacDonald says, "I have a lot of perspective that younger people don't have. I have my kids, and that's really the most important thing."
One lesson she learned through her life's struggles, MacDonald says, is not to give up. "Out of tragedy," she notes, "sometimes can come great opportunities."
Barbara Spector writes on science and technology as well as business topics. She is the editor-in-chief of Family Business magazine and former editor of The Scientist.