David L. Barnes, PhD

graduated with my master’s degree, the big environmental engineering challenge of the time was characterizing and remediating grossly contaminated lands and groundwater aquifers.  My first job was with a small company in Albuquerque, New Mexico, that was developing a specialization in this topic.  I worked as a design engineer in this company for five years delineating groundwater plumes contaminated with non-aqueous phase liquids (NAPL) and developing treatment methods for these contaminated sites.  During my work on these contaminated sites, I seemed to formulate more questions than answers about the problems I was trying to solve. Rightfully so, the environmental science and engineering community still did not have a complete understanding of the physics of how these non-aqueous phase liquids migrated through the subsurface, and treatment methods designed to remediate soil and groundwater contaminated with these liquids were only marginally successful.  I decided to pursue one of my goals and earn my doctorate, choosing to focus on the topic of groundwater dynamics and contaminate fate and transport.  I studied under Dr. David McWhorter at Colorado State University. My dissertation research focused on the problem of designing treatment systems for NAPL contaminated soils.  Following the completion of my Ph.D., I worked for the University of Texas Austin for two years as a research program manager prior to attaining my tenure track position at the University of Alaska Fairbanks where I have focused my research and teaching program on permafrost aquifers.  The topic of permafrost aquifers has given me the opportunity to work on problems in many of the cold regions around the world.  I still enjoy hiking and spending time studying mountain streams (and maybe a little bit of playing) and our environment, and now I enjoy these times with my family.