ByLinda Ober / The Citizen
Charles Driscoll could not get off the phone. He was continuously answering e-mails, getting congratulatory handshakes and accepting words of praise from people he didn't even know.
His feat? Driscoll had just been elected to the National Academy of Engineering, one of the highest honors that can be bestowed upon someone in his profession.
It is an honor that Driscoll had expected might one day come - he knew that a colleague had nominated him the year before and that the vote then had been close but no cigar - but was nevertheless shocked to receive the notification last month.
Working from his home on East Lake Road in Skaneateles, Driscoll opened an e-mail from FedEx informing him that a package had been delivered to his office at Syracuse University, where he has been a professor of civil and environmental engineering since 1979. His wife, Kimberley, sure that it was a notice from the National Academy, insisted that he call in to have someone open the package.
Sure enough, she was right. The following day, the academy sent out a press release naming Driscoll and the other 63 members who are slated to be inducted in a September ceremony in Washington, D.C.
“Then I spent all day either answering the phone or answering e-mails,” Driscoll recalled. “It was incredible the number of people calling.”
What exactly it means to be inducted to into the non-profit institution is still somewhat of a mystery to Driscoll, who has a large stack of reading material from the academy to go through.
But what is clear is that Driscoll, 54, is keeping good company with some of the nation's finest engineers, and that he has received this honor younger than most. Only 7 percent of the academy's members are 30 to 55 years old.
Driscoll has packed a lot into his years. A civil and environmental engineer with a passion for the chemistry of soils and drainage waters and the long-term effects of such things as acid rain and mercury, he has authored nearly 300 scientific papers. He has brought in research grants and been asked to participate in several committees commissioned by the National Research Council, the principal operating arm of the National Academies, which includes the engineering group.
Since the mid-1970s, Driscoll has been a researcher at Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire, where he is the principal investigator on a long-term ecological research study funded by the National Science Foundation. That study, which began in 1987, involves looking at the ecological effects of disturbance events such as clear-cutting, climate change and air pollution.
After Driscoll and his peers observed that acid rain had leached more than half of the calcium from the soil at Hubbard Brook, they decided to add some calcium back to see how the forest would respond.
They have found that within five years, the sugar maple has begun to regenerate and the water quality has improved.
“You can argue it's only just starting to get interesting,” said an enthusiastic Driscoll.
One could say the same about Driscoll's career.
In addition to his election to the academy, Driscoll is starting work on a new committee, commissioned by the National Research Council and overseen by the Army Corps of Engineers, in which he will study the Everglades. The project will require several trips to Florida over the next few months.
He's also involved in an ongoing Hubbard Brook program called “Science Links,” in which he and other researchers take complex science concepts and put them into laymen's terms.
“The idea is to translate scientific information and make it available to ... the general public,” Driscoll said of the publications, which are distributed to the U.S. Congress, non-government organizations and high school and college classrooms.
Thus far, the group has completed three “Science Links” projects, and two, including one on environmental monitoring, are in the works. The first publication, titled “Acid Rain Revisited,” put Driscoll and his colleagues in the spotlight.
“This first one was wildly successful,” Driscoll recalled, noting that it was right after President George Bush withdrew support of the Kyoto Protocol. “The amount of attention we got was just phenomenal. I was interviewed by every major paper in the country and on talk shows.”
The other two publications, one on nitrogen and one on mercury hot spots, didn't draw quite as much attention, but Driscoll was no less proud of the work that went into them and their potential to change national policy.
“I'm very interested in my work,” Driscoll said, noting that he likes looking at challenging problems. “I enjoy it, and I think it's important. I like to think I have an impact.”
His feat? Driscoll had just been elected to the National Academy of Engineering, one of the highest honors that can be bestowed upon someone in his profession.
It is an honor that Driscoll had expected might one day come - he knew that a colleague had nominated him the year before and that the vote then had been close but no cigar - but was nevertheless shocked to receive the notification last month.
Working from his home on East Lake Road in Skaneateles, Driscoll opened an e-mail from FedEx informing him that a package had been delivered to his office at Syracuse University, where he has been a professor of civil and environmental engineering since 1979. His wife, Kimberley, sure that it was a notice from the National Academy, insisted that he call in to have someone open the package.
Sure enough, she was right. The following day, the academy sent out a press release naming Driscoll and the other 63 members who are slated to be inducted in a September ceremony in Washington, D.C.
“Then I spent all day either answering the phone or answering e-mails,” Driscoll recalled. “It was incredible the number of people calling.”
What exactly it means to be inducted to into the non-profit institution is still somewhat of a mystery to Driscoll, who has a large stack of reading material from the academy to go through.
But what is clear is that Driscoll, 54, is keeping good company with some of the nation's finest engineers, and that he has received this honor younger than most. Only 7 percent of the academy's members are 30 to 55 years old.
Driscoll has packed a lot into his years. A civil and environmental engineer with a passion for the chemistry of soils and drainage waters and the long-term effects of such things as acid rain and mercury, he has authored nearly 300 scientific papers. He has brought in research grants and been asked to participate in several committees commissioned by the National Research Council, the principal operating arm of the National Academies, which includes the engineering group.
Since the mid-1970s, Driscoll has been a researcher at Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire, where he is the principal investigator on a long-term ecological research study funded by the National Science Foundation. That study, which began in 1987, involves looking at the ecological effects of disturbance events such as clear-cutting, climate change and air pollution.
After Driscoll and his peers observed that acid rain had leached more than half of the calcium from the soil at Hubbard Brook, they decided to add some calcium back to see how the forest would respond.
They have found that within five years, the sugar maple has begun to regenerate and the water quality has improved.
“You can argue it's only just starting to get interesting,” said an enthusiastic Driscoll.
One could say the same about Driscoll's career.
In addition to his election to the academy, Driscoll is starting work on a new committee, commissioned by the National Research Council and overseen by the Army Corps of Engineers, in which he will study the Everglades. The project will require several trips to Florida over the next few months.
He's also involved in an ongoing Hubbard Brook program called “Science Links,” in which he and other researchers take complex science concepts and put them into laymen's terms.
“The idea is to translate scientific information and make it available to ... the general public,” Driscoll said of the publications, which are distributed to the U.S. Congress, non-government organizations and high school and college classrooms.
Thus far, the group has completed three “Science Links” projects, and two, including one on environmental monitoring, are in the works. The first publication, titled “Acid Rain Revisited,” put Driscoll and his colleagues in the spotlight.
“This first one was wildly successful,” Driscoll recalled, noting that it was right after President George Bush withdrew support of the Kyoto Protocol. “The amount of attention we got was just phenomenal. I was interviewed by every major paper in the country and on talk shows.”
The other two publications, one on nitrogen and one on mercury hot spots, didn't draw quite as much attention, but Driscoll was no less proud of the work that went into them and their potential to change national policy.
“I'm very interested in my work,” Driscoll said, noting that he likes looking at challenging problems. “I enjoy it, and I think it's important. I like to think I have an impact.”
