David Kosson

Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Engineering
Professor of Chemical Engineering
Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences
Director of the Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation (CRESP)

Civil and Environmental Engineering
Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (secondary)

Intellectual Neighborhoods

• Risk and Reliability
• Energy and Natural Resources
• Nano Science and Technology

Research Focus

I focus on research in waste management and environmental remediation that allows new understanding of the fundamental behavior of chemical and radionuclide contaminants in wastes, engineered systems and the environment to impact major decisions and policy. For example, work in my research group in collaboration with other faculty and international partners has resulted in establishment of the U.S. EPA Leaching Environmental Assessment Framework (LEAF), which is now being used for national policy decisions on the management of coal fly ash.

Research on improving remediation and waste treatment processes has changed the approaches being used at several Department of Energy (DOE) sites formerly used for the production of nuclear defense materials. The Cementitious Barriers Partnership (CBP), a collaboration of several federal agencies, national laboratories and international partners formed under my leadership, is providing the tools necessary to predict the long-term performance of cement and concrete materials used in nuclear energy and nuclear waste management.

Sterling Ranch is currently defining the future of sustainable, technology-integrated, learning communities. Located just south of Denver in Douglas County Colorado, Sterling Ranch will be a one-of-a kind community comprised of nine villages, a town center, commercial sector, medical facility, school system, and educational center.  At build-out, the community will be home to over 12,000 residences and two million square feet of commercial space.  Sterling Ranch is partnering with Vanderbilt University to assist in the design of cutting edge facilities, analytical capabilities, and the development of a world-class curriculum for K-8 students that incorporates the community's advances in real-time energy and water monitoring, energy efficiency, water conservation, ecosystem management, smart cities, data analysis, and sustainable development.  In collaboration with Siemens, IBM, and the Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), Sterling Ranch will set the direction for future development in Colorado and the rest of the nation. Sterling Ranch is a unique, learning laboratory where new methods in data collection, analysis, and interpretation will be used to inform future decisions for residents, businesses, education, utilities, and regional development.

Research interests include: Nuclear waste management, environmental remediation, leaching assessment and methods, management of residuals from energy production, contaminant mass transfer applied to groundwater, soil, sediment and waste systems.

Biography

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