April 4, 1997
Contact: Louise Snider, 619/594-5204
Endowment gives major push to environmental engineering at SDSU
With research support provided by a $500,000 grant from the Blasker-Rose-Miah
Endowment Fund of the San Diego Community Foundation, San Diego State University
has recruited an outstanding chemical engineer to occupy the newly endowed
Blasker Chair in Environmental Science and Engineering.
Dr. Mirat D. Gurol, professor of chemical engineering
at Drexel University, Philadelphia, will join the faculty of the Department
of Civil and Environmental Engineering in August 1997 as the Blasker Chair.
She is an engineer of "outstanding professional
credentials and reputation, as both an educator and researcher, "
says Pieter A. Frick, dean of SDSU's College of Engineering. Her special
research interests are in removal of toxic chemicals from water, wastewater,
air and soil; and development of innovative technologies for reuse, recycling
and waste treatment. At Drexel, she also developed new courses in environmental
engineering, including one on hazardous waste and groundwater treatment.
Her experience closely fits the research direction
and leadership role expected of the Blasker Chair on a wide range of water
issues, such as quality, contamination, treatment, remediation, transport,
etc.
"Water to support the population is the number
one problem in the future of San Diego," says Frick, who adds that
this research emphasis also provides the College with an opportunity to
cooperate with San Diego firms engaged in related research and to attract
other firms and research dollars to San Diego.
To support and expand these efforts, the engineering
college plans to add two additional faculty members in the environmental
area to build the undergraduate and graduate programs, and to make environmental
consciousness a central theme for all its undergraduate programs.
"We also are making a substantial investment
in equipment and laboratory facilities to accomodate Dr. Gurol and the
research program," says Frick. "In addition, we will offer environmental
engineering as a concentration to participants in the Defense Conversion
program."
The joint doctoral program in applied engineering
with UCSD may also be expanded or given new direction in view of the environmental
chair at SDSU and another one established at UCSD with a similar gift from
the San Diego Community Foundation that also includes support for up to
three fellowships at each institution.
The increased emphasis on environmental issues
at both universities, says Frick, will serve to educate and train a succession
of young environmental engineers and scientists to seek solutions to present
and future environmental problems.
Grants for the two endowed chairs were awarded from the $10.2 million Blasker-Rose-Miah
Endowment Fund for science research and applications established in 1992
and administered by the San Diego Community Foundation.
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