Kerry Kinney, Ph.D., holds the L.P. Gilvin Centennial Professorship in the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. She also is a courtesy professor in the Department of Population Health at the Dell Medical School. Kinney’s cross-disciplinary research in environmental engineering and molecular biology centers on the investigation of microorganisms and contaminants in engineered systems including buildings, residential water systems and municipal wastewater systems. She has extensive experience working with multidisciplinary teams to investigate human exposure to microorganisms and contaminants in the indoor environment.
Nuggets mined from today’s episode:
Dr Kinney attributes her prior work in industry (hazmat consulting) with piquing her curiosity and interest in science. She learned as much in industry as she did as an undergrad.
Research and practitioners live in 2 different worlds. Practitioners need to push their problems toward researchers. And researchers need to push their research to practitioners. Better communication between researchers and practitioners contributes to: identifying problems, knowledge gain, resulting in new solutions. Cross-pollination between practitioners and researchers will provide solutions faster. Look beyond your discipline.
IAQ has always been important, and is even more so now due to COVID with more people forced to spend more time at home indoors. There are greater concerns about cleaning and building systems operation due to COVID.
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