(See Projects story on Measuring Fine Particles.)

What part of the world are you from?
New Jersey.

Most people don't have a good impression of New Jersey …
I know they don't, but New Jersey is the Garden State. I come from South Jersey and it really is gardenlike there. I think most people see the turnpike and North Jersey and think that's the whole state. Still, Michigan is far more beautiful.

How did you get interested in your field of study/research?
A beloved high school teacher showed me the joys of chemistry. It's funny because later he dropped chemistry and became a psychologist. A beloved grad school prof moved me toward environmental studies. In both cases, I enjoyed the teachers almost more than the subject.

How did you end up at R&D?
My grad school prof recommended GM. Two of my schoolmates were already working at R&D.

What were your early assignments?
Initially I studied acid rain, which was a carryover from graduate research, plus emissions from brake pads and from woodburning fireplaces. That last one was an odd project.

When I came to GM in 1979, we had a mobile lab group that went to a different site each summer to investigate emissions related to vehicles. At that time, they were studying the Denver "Brown Cloud." Denver had a smoggy brown haze that obscured the mountains, and automobiles received the blame. But someone had a theory that the cloud actually resulted form woodburning fireplaces. So I measured emissions from a woodburning fireplace, a furnace, and a hot water heater. When we put the whole picture together for Denver, we discovered that woodburning was a major part of the air pollution problem there.

[Editor's note: Denver was the first major metropolitan area to ban the construction of new wood-burning fireplaces. Additional control measures in Denver and surrounding mountain communities in effect today include innovative wood-burning controls.]

What are you working on presently?
We're studying emissions from welding and machining as a follow-up to our investigation into fine particles from automotive manufacturing processes. I'm also working on developing tool coatings to enable dry machining.

That sounds like a daunting task …
It is. We're aware of the problems involved with machining fluids – high cost, infrastructure needed to transfer them, environmental and health issues – but they sure work well. Trying to machine dry with coatings only has been a big challenge. Other researchers who are knowledgeable about coatings are also involved in the project.

We've been pretty successful, but I don't know if we can reach the levels necessary for manufacturing. We started with uncoated drills and determined the number of holes we can drill; with new coatings we've increased that number by two orders of magnitude, but it's still not good enough. We're not quite ready to quit yet, however.

What excites you about your research?
I enjoy taking a lot of experimental data and trying to find a pattern or a trend or, better still, one of those rare "Eureka" moments.

What are you most proud of?
I'm proud of the breadth of research studies I've been involved in at R&D – from auto emissions to manufacturing issues to groundwater cleanup to acid rain. The groundwater cleanup project, for instance, involved the Willow Run Assembly Plant, which is now closed. The plant had a tank farm in the ground that held vehicle fluids, like gasoline, motor oil, and hydraulic and brake fluids. Over time, some of the tanks leaked.

We set up an enormous system to pull water out of the ground and put air through the soil to volatilize substances like ethylene. We also used bioremediation: by putting air through, we could get the microbes working to eat up the contaminants. I really enjoyed that project.

What is your work like life?
Most days find me in front of the computer working on data or writing papers or helping to direct research projects.

What do you do when you're not working?
I have two kids in middle school and they take all of my non-GM time. It is a constant challenge to not cheat my kids or GM out of their due. Unfortunately, the needs of my husband and myself are so far on the back burner that we've fallen off the stove.