Clean Transportation

As an immigrant, issues of race, equity, and inclusion have always been central to my lived experience and values. As an environmental engineer and policy analyst, I feel grateful to align my convictions with my experience and to lead ERG’s environmental and climate justice solutions practice.

The environmental issues we face today are complex and multi-faceted. Reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, ozone precursors, particulates, and other pollutants involves careful application of a variety of skill sets. Working at ERG allows me to collaborate with a wide range of national experts in environmental science, engineering, statistics, economic and policy analysis, IT, and communications to develop integrative solutions to these problems. The work challenges me to continually expand my abilities and my perspective.

These are exciting times. Rapid increases in computing power and greater availability of relevant data sets are making it possible to create ever-more complex systems to quantify emissions from aircraft, marine vessels, and railways. I am proud to be part of a team of experienced scientists and engineers at ERG with whom I can do high-quality work in this challenging environment. By combining our perspectives and skill sets, we leverage these new opportunities and solve the problems inherent in handcrafting state-of-the-art air quality data sets.

Happily, I’m able to say that the work I do helps the environment and people and not the other way around.

Every day is a beautiful day. And if I learn something new—whether it’s about machine learning, vehicle aerodynamics, signal processing, infrared spectroscopy, or how helpful my buddies are—that day is even more beautiful.

 'Some old-fashioned things like fresh air and sunshine are hard to beat,’ Laura Ingalls Wilder once wrote. I couldn’t agree more, which is why I’ve dedicated my career to reducing air pollution.

Building meaningful relationships with clients, co-workers, stakeholders, and the community is key to the success of every project. Over my years of supporting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s mission as a contractor, I have been fortunate to learn from some of the best and brightest researchers. I look forward to continuing to use my experience and engineering skills in developing innovative solutions to environmental problems in the United States and around the world.

I come from a family devoted to public service, so there’s nowhere I would rather be than on the leading edge of sustainability, helping decision-makers at all levels understand the best available options for reducing their environmental footprint and protecting people and places from the ever-increasing impacts of climate change.

As an economist, I have come to appreciate that the qualitative context—including co-benefits, benefits distribution, environmental and health impacts, and social and political obstacles—can be as essential to decision-making as the numerical outputs. I enjoy working holistically with my government and community clients to determine how best to meet their needs and communicate the results.

At ERG, I thrive on learning something new, meeting someone interesting, and contributing solutions that address transportation’s impact on climate change and vice versa. Whether working in the local, state, federal, or international arena, I enjoy collaborating across and beyond ERG to find creative ways to communicate information, engage audiences, and engineer solutions in service of our clients and their goals.

I have dedicated my career to reducing the energy and emission footprint of vehicle travel, a major source of air pollution worldwide. Thanks to inspiration from great mentors and clients, I had the opportunity to build and manage what has become a world-class team of mobile sources experts who relish the challenge of tackling complex problems. Disadvantaged communities experience a disproportional impact from vehicle-related air pollution, and I am gratified beyond measure that our work has helped improve air quality, not only across the United States but also in other countries around the world, where we have facilitated development of customized solutions based on local conditions.

Thanks to a summer job at EPA—where I went into a frigid test cell in a parka at 5:00 AM each morning to prepare cars for emission testing—I became hooked on environmental work. After many years supporting EPA in developing several major air emission rules, I find it deeply gratifying to apply the knowledge I acquired to help reduce emissions in the United States and help other countries take similar measures to significantly reduce their pollution.

Throughout my career, first at EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality and now with ERG’s clean transportation group, the best part of my work has been helping others—for example, by analyzing available data (which never seem to be ideal), explaining the results to technical and non-technical audiences in ways they can readily understand, and providing options for moving forward. It also seems to help if I try to listen more than I talk, not to take myself too seriously, and share a few laughs along the way.

My favorite problems are the difficult ones—those sticky, multi-jurisdictional, multi-sector problems that require us to find new partners, develop new frameworks for working together, and be brave, humble, and kind. I love building frameworks that enable the person with the least amount of power and the person with the most amount of power to share their perspectives and contribute to solutions. Whatever the issue, my goals are to develop transparent, equitable, and effective solutions and to have fun along the way!

Improving global health demands innovative solutions and evolving perspectives. I thrive on developing cutting-edge methodologies and promoting novel insights made possible by advances in data quality, quantity, and availability.

I feel incredibly fortunate to have a job where I can work with gifted colleagues on rewarding projects supporting efforts that are important to me. Our clients are great, the work is diverse, and ERG provides the resources we need to be successful in our efforts.

Both companies and the public sector have to assess environmental tradeoffs in the face of limited resources. LCA is a great tool for assessing those tradeoffs and making choices consistent with values. By generating high-quality public data and LCA tools, we provide the underlying data necessary for effective decision-making.