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Alison Wood, Ph.D.

Alison Wood

Assistant Professor of Environmental Engineering

MH356

phone
781-292-2576
email
alison.wood@olin.edu

Education

Ph.D. Civil Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin
M.S. Environmental and Water Resources Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin
B.S. Civil and Environmental Engineering, Rutgers University
A.B. Dramatic Literature, Harvard University

Research

Life cycle costs of sustainable sanitation technologies Cost-effectiveness of nitrogen removal by sustainable sanitation technologies Applying environmental flow regulations Software development, specifically Java-based CUAHSI web services client and ODM database

Awards

National Network for Environmental Management Studies Fellowship
Walter L. and Reta Mae Moore Graduate Fellowship in Civil Engineering
Trigg & Fannie E. Twichell Centennial Endowed Presidential Scholarship
Engineering Foundation Endowed Graduate Presidential Scholarship

Biography

Dr. Wood is a distinguished researcher in the fields of both water and sanitation, as well as sustainability solutions, through interdisciplinary approaches. Her love of learning was first fostered by an unusual elementary school education that was deeply interdisciplinary with a substantial arts curriculum. After graduating from Harvard University with a B.A. in Dramatic Literature, she worked professionally in theater and wrote and recorded two musical albums.  She then returned to school to study engineering, earning a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Rutgers University in 2011. While completing her degree at Rutgers, she wrote and arranged the music and lyrics for a stage musical in collaboration with a Los Angeles based playwright. Dr. Wood went on to earn a Master of Science in Engineering in Environmental and Water Resources Engineering and a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin. Her love of teaching has grown through fifteen years of private tutoring, three years of teaching summer drama classes to teenagers, and her years as a teaching assistant at UT Austin. She has published research papers in incentivizing decentralized sanitation and wastewater treatment, sustainability analysis of coastal community water and sanitation service options, and automated data acquisition for integrating multiple datasets using GIS applications proceedings.

Select Publications

Wood, A., Blackhurst, M., Garland, J., Lawler, D.F. (2016). Incentivizing Decentralized Sanitation: The Role of Discount Rates. Environmental Science and Technology. DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.6b00385
Wood, A., Blackhurst, M., Lawler, D.F. (2016). Social Acceptance as a Prerequisite for Social Sustainability. Presentation at Environmental and Water Resources Institute World Environmental & Water Resources Congress. West Palm Beach, FL.
Wood, A., Blackhurst, M., & Lawler, D. (2015). To Sewer or Not to Sewer: Incentivizing Decentralized Wastewater Treatment. Presentation at Environmental and Water Resources Institute World Environmental & Water Resources Congress. Austin, TX.
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