ES&T Associate Editor Dzombak named to NAE

Dzombak is cited for his novel development of models used in evaluating chemical behavior in water-quality engineering and environmental remediation.

David Dzombak began life with a chemistry professor at home: his father, William Dzombak, taught at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa., for 35 years. Now the junior Dzombak has achieved one of the highest professional distinctions for an engineer: election into the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE).

Dzombak is the Walter J. Blenko Sr. Professor of Environmental Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. He became an associate editor of ES&T in 2005. Announcing Dzombak's new role at the journal, ES&T Editor Jerald Schnoor notes his versatility: "He is a true scholar in environmental sciences and engineering, with applications to both the natural and built environment."

"Dave has been a leader in fostering multidisciplinary research," says Pradeep Khosla, dean of Carnegie Mellon's College of Engineering, who asked Dzombak to be his associate dean a year and a half ago. "He is extremely hard-working and very focused, to the point that people might think he is too serious, but believe me, he has a great sense of dry humor."

NAE named Dzombak's groundbreaking research on models used in evaluating chemical behavior in water and site remediation as the reason for his election to the academy. Along with the National Academy of Sciences, NAE advises the federal government on questions of policy in science and technology.

Dzombak's interests are wide-ranging and include aquatic chemistry, especially interactions of chemicals with mineral surfaces in water; water and wastewater treatment; abandoned-mine drainage remediation; river and watershed restoration; and hazardous-site remediation.

Early in his career, Dzombak completed unique work in surface complexation modeling, which led to the 1990 book Surface Complexation Modeling: Hydrous Ferric Oxide, considered a classic text. Dzombak is proud of this work, he says, "because it helped bring surface complexation modeling from the research domain into more practical use." He is also pleased with his work in improving understanding of the role of cyanide speciation in the fate, transport, and treatment of cyanide in water and soil. This research led to a second book, published in 2006, Cyanide in Water and Soil: Chemistry, Risk, and Management.

Dzombak has received many awards, including the Professional Research Award from the Pennsylvania Water Environment Association; the Jack Edward McKee Medal from the Water Environment Federation; the Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize from the American Society of Civil Engineers; and a Service Award from the Carnegie Mellon Green Practices Committee, a program launched in 1998 to develop expanded environmental practices on campus. In 1991, he received a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award.

Dzombak credits his early interest in science to his dad, "who taught me many things about basic and applied science from the time I was very small," he says. His love of science extends to community projects in and near Pittsburgh, including the Nine Mile Run project to reclaim a brownfield site plagued by 75 years of steel slag and create a greenway connecting a city park and the Monongahela River. He has devoted time to regional efforts to resolve Pittsburgh's combined-sewer overflow problem, which causes raw sewage to be dumped into the rivers when it rains, as well as to projects designed to treat drainage from abandoned coal mines in western Pennsylvania.

"Dave to me is the model engineer—a model of organization, discipline, communication, of interpersonal skills with students and faculty," explains Deb Lange, executive director of Carnegie Mellon's Steinbrenner Institute for Environmental Education and Research, of which Dzombak is the director.

At the national level, Dzombak chairs the U.S. EPA Science Advisory Board's Environmental Engineering Committee and the National Research Council's Committee on the Mississippi River and the Clean Water Act.

Dzombak is a runner who hits the streets early in the morning and logs about 25 miles per week. He has completed nine marathons. It was a typical midlife crisis that led him to long-distance running, he says, adding with his usual quiet humor that "running is a lot less expensive than a sports car." —CATHERINE M. COONEY