Celina Dozier: Securing Clean Water for All and Gaining Expertise to Help Others
Celina feels that the Environmental and Water Resources Engineering Program at UT is the ideal place in which to get a graduate degree, because the people are very welcoming and friendly, and collaboration between faculty and students is highly encouraged.
Clean water scarcity in developing nations, particularly in Africa, is a problem that doctoral student Celina Dozier aspires to eradicate. She hopes to use her knowledge to teach others about sanitation and the ways in which water can be treated.
Early in her education, Celina cultivated a strong passion for the sciences. Her scientifi c aptitude and desire to improve others’ living conditions led her to pursue an undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering at Florida A&M University. As an undergrad, she wrote her honors thesis on treating water contaminated with trichloroethylene, a solvent often used for cleaning metal parts. Afterward she decided to complete an MS in Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley, where she completed a project that measured iodinated disinfection by-products of iodine tablets used to disinfect water.
Impressed by the fact that the Environmental & Water Resources Engineering (EWRE) graduate program at University of Texas at Austin is continuously ranked as one of the best environmental engineering programs in the country, Celina decided to pursue her PhD here. She is currently developing a treatment method for water contaminated with pharmaceuticals and personal care products. Activated alumina, a material with a high surface area, will be used to adsorb these contaminants from the water and then UV/TiO2, an advanced oxidation process, will be used for photodegradation.
During her first year at UT, Celina was supported by the Earnest and Agnes Gloyna Endowed Presidential Scholarship and a Graduate School Diversity Recruitment Fellowship. She was recently awarded a graduate research fellowship from the National Science Foundation and the Agnes T. and Charles F. Wiebusch Fellowship from UT. The support of these fellowships enables Celina to maintain a strong focus on her research and to accomplish her personal goals. “As a graduate student”, she says, “it’s important to have funding to sustain you throughout your studies. Being awarded these fellowships means that I can use my time to concentrate on the progress of my research.”
An NSF Graduate Fellowship recipient, Celina is using the high surface area of activated alumina to adsorb pharmaceuticals and personal care products from water and then UV/TiO2 to photodegrade these compounds into products that are not biologically active like the parent compounds.
Between her master’s and doctoral studies, Celina worked with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection in Tallahassee. As a pretreatment engineer, she travelled throughout the state to inspect wastewater plants and to ensure that various industries were properly treating water before discharging it. Through this experience, she learned that possible environmental negligence was taking place in her hometown of Jacksonville. She noticed that many industries that used and processed toxic chemicals were situated within predominantly poor, African-American neighborhoods. This discovery inspired Celina to add environmental law classes to her course schedule at UT.
Her civic-mindedness is nothing new. During her formative years, she witnessed those closest to her lending a hand to underserved communities. Celina grew up in a community oriented family with her grandmother serving as a Florida State representative and President of the Jacksonville Chapter of the NAACP. She was raised with an awareness of social injustices and the importance of helping others. Celina’s family also imparted on her the importance of education. Her family began preparing her for college in their family-owned day care center and ensured that she attended highly competitive college preparatory schools in middle and high school.
She feels that the EWRE program is ideal for earning a graduate degree, because her colleagues are welcoming nd friendly, and collaboration between faculty and students is highly encouraged. After completing her Ph.D., Celina plans to become a professor in environmental engineering, focusing on research that ensures clean water is available to all, especially in developing nations where help is needed the most.