When Charlie Driscoll was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering, the academy had a presentation explaining the process by which it selects new members.

Driscoll was humbled.

‘There were 600 or 700 nominated,’ he said, ‘but only 64 inducted this year. The members vote, and you need greater than 85 percent to get in. I was surprised, given how difficult it is. I wouldn’t think that I would get in, but it’s a great honor.’

Lisa Cleckner, a colleague of Driscoll’s, said she isn’t surprised in the least.

‘I think it’s fantastic. He deserves the honor,’ she said. ‘And as someone who has read his papers, and cited them and everything else, he definitely deserves the accolades he is getting.’

As Driscoll was elected by the academy’s 2,000 members, clearly Cleckner wasn’t the only one who thought that way.

Driscoll has been an environmental engineering professor at Syracuse University for the past 28 years. He was inducted in September, but has known of the decision since February.

As a member of the academy, Driscoll will help participate in the nomination process for future members and serve on various research committees, which he has done since the 1980s. First, he studied the effects of acid rain, followed by a study of the effectiveness of the Clean Air Act, mandated by Congress. He has also studied the current state of the everglades.

Driscoll’s main focus is on mercury pollution, and he has done extensive research in the Adirondacks and especially Onondaga Lake, where he has been working since he came here nearly 40 years ago.

‘My own area of interest is in the water,’ Driscoll said. ‘I’ve been trying to work with the local industry and consulting firms to help them come up with cost-effective ways to improve the lake.’

In 2006, Driscoll was at the International Conference on Mercury as a Global Pollutant, when he was struck with an idea.

Brian Branfireun, a professor at the University of Toronto and a fellow mercury researcher, witnessed the moment of inspiration.

‘Charlie and I organized a meeting at this conference,’ he said. ‘We had a number of grad students involved in the meeting. And part of the way through, Charlie noted how strong the interaction was. They were getting a lot of information and benefiting a lot from that discussion. He wanted to organize a better exchange between the groups of students.’

Driscoll was already teaching a reading course on mercury and the environment, and he suggested they do videoconferences to share the class with Branfireun’s students at the University of Toronto.

‘We had this room,’ Driscoll said, ‘that we can set up video cameras in, and we can have the students talk to one another, even though some are in Syracuse and some are in Toronto.’

It was such a success that they did a full term last fall, and then the two groups met at a research station in the Adirondacks.

‘Although some met at the conference, not all of the students had met each other in person,’ Driscoll said. ‘So at the end of the semester, we had this retreat, and they get together and talk about their own projects and their own work. Students, they get really jazzed by it, and having real-time interaction with these students from the other schools.’

The class is being offered a second time this semester, with two new universities participating: University of Connecticut and Clarkson University.

‘It really was born out of Charlie’s desire to increase the interactions between students,’ Branfireun said. ‘What really motivates him was providing opportunities for his graduate students.’

Mario Montesdeoca, an environmental engineering graduate student who has worked closely with Driscoll, described his teaching style.

‘When students come to work for him,’ he said, ‘he gives them guidance, and then lets them do their own thing. When they need help, he’ll give them guidance again, and then let them go again. I find it to be very helpful for the student to become a researcher. They get in the habit of making important decisions. He allows them to explore and helps them to focus on their goals.’

Driscoll helped Cleckner get her job at SU.

‘He’s always been amazing,’ she said. ‘He’s just been a great colleague to talk to and to bounce ideas off of. He’s approachable and knowledgeable, and is definitely regarded as a world expert.’

Cleckner echoed Montesdeoca’s evaluation of Driscoll’s teaching style. While working on grant proposals together, she said he was very ready to do whatever he needed to do, and his portions were always finished promptly.

In addition to mentoring graduate students and teaching his teleconferenced discussion class, Driscoll teaches environmental engineering at State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

The class mixes lectures and student projects to help break up the monotony of constant lectures. Since students are asked to develop presentations on their own, the material covered by the class is different from year to year.

‘It’s fun because it’s not just engineering students or science students,’ Driscoll said. ‘It’s students from a variety of backgrounds. That’s good because the students have different interests, different perspectives and they bring that to the class.’

He finds a diversified sharing of ideas vital to strong research, whether it is from the variety of people in his class or people from different areas.

‘It’s good for students to see this sort of diversity in terms of perspectives and backgrounds, because a lot of the problems that we work on today are very complicated and require teams of people working on these projects,’ Driscoll said. ‘It can be a struggle because students sometimes have difficulty working together, but that’s going to prepare them for real life.’

Montesdeoca summarized what makes Driscoll so unique.

‘He’s a great researcher, but he’s also a great mentor,’ he said. ‘And that’s something that’s hard to come about.’

Published on October 18, 2007 at 12:00 pm