Dr. von Braun has been on the University of Idaho faculty since 1980.  She received her BS in Engineering Science and Mechanics at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1974, her MCE in Civil Engineering at the University of Idaho in 1980, and her Ph.D. in Civil/Environmental Engineering in 1989 at Washington State University.  She was awarded the College of Engineering Outstanding Faculty Award in 1992.  Dr. von Braun was a Kellogg National Leadership Fellow from1993 to 1996.  Dr. von Braun’s research areas include human health risk assessment, hazardous waste site characterization with a focus on sampling dust contaminated with heavy metals, and risk communication.  She teaches hazardous waste management, risk assessment, and the Environmental Science senior thesis practicum.

Dr. von Braun’s career at the UI is best characterized as interdisciplinary in both teaching and research.  In July 2002, she accepted the position of Associate Dean for the College of Graduate Studies.  In 1993 Dr. von Braun co-founded the Environmental Science Program of which she serves as director.  This program serves more than 150 undergraduate and 37 graduate students.  Over 90 faculty members from all 9 colleges at UI teach and advise students in the interdisciplinary program.  In July of 1998, MS and M.Engr degrees in Environmental Engineering were approved by the State Board of Education and she served as director of the program until September 2002.

In 1985, Dr. von Braun founded the University of Idaho Science Camp, targeting 8-10th grade minority and female students from the Washington-Idaho-Montana- Nevada-Arizona-Oregon region.  She directed the camp until 1996.  Fifty students each summer gain hands-on experience in science and engineering with carefully designed labs and field trips.

Dr. von Braun has published and/or presented more than 40 professional papers.  She is currently developing a project in the mining district north of Vladivostok, Russia (similar to Idaho’s Silver Valley) with scientists at Far Eastern State University in Vladivostok, environmental health specialists at Johns Hopkins University and international lead industries.  This project, in Russia’s uncertain economic times, has provided new perspectives on the applicability of US environmental cleanup methods abroad.

Under contract to the Department of Energy, Dr. von Braun has presented mixed waste risk assessment workshops at nearly every DOE site in the country to contractors, citizens’ groups and state and federal regulators.

In 1984, Dr. von Braun and her husband, Dr. Ian von Lindern, established TerraGraphics Environmental Engineering, Inc.   TerraGraphics maintains offices in Moscow and Kellogg, Idaho and has played a major role in the risk assessment and cleanup activities at the Bunker Hill Superfund site in northern Idaho.

For more information, Dr. von Braun can be reached at vonbraun@uidaho or (208) 885-6243.  

Or write her at the
College of Graduate Studies 
University of Idaho
PO Box 443017
Moscow, Idaho, 83844-3017.