Margrit von Braun is the administrative Dean, former director and one of the founders of the Environmental Science Program.  Dr. von Braun is the Associate Dean of the College of Graduate Studies and has been on the University of Idaho faculty since 1980 (curriculum vitae.pdf).  She received her BS in Engineering Science and Mechanics at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1974, her MCE in Civil Engineering at the University of Idaho in 1980, and her Ph.D. in Civil/Environmental Engineering in 1989 at Washington State University.  She was awarded the College of Engineering Outstanding Faculty Award in 1992.  Dr. von Braun was a Kellogg National Leadership Fellow from 1993 to 1996.  Her research areas include human health risk assessment, hazardous waste site characterization with a focus on sampling dust contaminated with heavy metals, and risk communication.  

Dr. von Braun’s career at the UI is best characterized as interdisciplinary in both teaching and research.  In 1993 she co-founded the Environmental Science Program of which she serves as director.  This program serves more than 130 undergraduate and 78 graduate students.  Over 90 faculty members from all 8 colleges at UI teach and advise students in the interdisciplinary program.  In January 2003, the PhD in Environmental Science was  approved by the State Board of Education. 

In 1985, Dr. von Braun founded the University of Idaho Science Camp, targeting 8-10th grade minority and female students from the Washington-Idaho-Montana-Nevada-Arizona-Oregon region.  She directed the camp until 1996.  Fifty students each summer gain hands-on experience in science and engineering with carefully designed labs and field trips.

Dr. von Braun has published and/or presented more than 40 professional papers.  She is currently developing a project in the mining district north of Vladivostok, Russia (similar to Idaho’s Silver Valley) with scientists at Far Eastern State University in Vladivostok, environmental health specialists at Johns Hopkins University and international lead industries.  This project, in Russia’s uncertain economic times, has provided new perspectives on the applicability of US environmental cleanup methods abroad.

Under contract to the Department of Energy, Dr. von Braun has presented mixed waste risk assessment workshops at nearly every DOE site in the country to contractors, citizens’ groups and state and federal regulators.

In 1984, Dr. von Braun and her husband, Dr. Ian von Linden, established TerraGraphics Environmental Engineering, Inc.   TerraGraphics maintains offices in Moscow and Kellogg, Idaho and has played a major role in the risk assessment and cleanup activities at the Bunker Hill Superfund site in northern Idaho.

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