Putting the Science in Conscience: A Conversation with Deb Niemeier

A sense of social justice has guided the University of Maryland professor since childhood and shaped her work.

Deb Niemeier, a civil engineer with a sense of social justice, received the 2023 Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in Science. (Picture courtesy of University of Maryland.)

UPDATE Feb 20, 2023: Updated with name of firm (Bechtel) that refused to bid on a big project because of environmental concerns. 

It’s a daunting task to approach someone who has reached the top of their profession when you operate only on the periphery of their field. So, it was with sweaty palms I called Deb Niemeier, Clark Distinguished Chair Professor of Civil Engineering and Environmental science at the University of Maryland, after she had received yet another accolade. This time, it’s the Franklin Institute’s 2023 Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in Science, in recognition of “her continuing research into improving crucial infrastructure decisions that contribute to a more equitable society.” (The “prize” is $250,000.)

I should not have been so worried. Niemeier is not at all what one might expect of a genius: a disregard for the trivial and all those beneath them, which is everyone. She is not in an ivory tower but at home with her golden retriever, Pilot, at her feet and her cat, Lucy, making the occasional appearance.

Deb greets me with a smile as one would a friend. She is as interested in me as I am in her, wanting to know where I’m from and about my family.

“This is about you,” I say, but Deb finds other people more interesting than herself. She downplays her accomplishments, a list that would have taken all our scheduled time to recite, as if they were no more than her vital signs or the dimensions of her house. Her accomplishments are not what she is; she is what she is doing now, such as directing the University of Maryland’s Center of Disaster Resilience. One of the projects she is working on now is mapping slave trade routes that exist today.

It’s clear that what drives Niemeier is not the steel, concrete and asphalt of ordinary civil engineering but that which escapes a normal engineering education – the humanistic, social side.

I try characterizing her work as being on the soft side of engineering. It does not go over well.

“That is coded language,” she says. “It means you can’t do the math. You should look at my stochastic papers.”

What’s a better summary of your body of work to date?

I would say I’m looking at the intersection of infrastructure and public policy and the structural landscape of the built environment. It’s simple. I don’t concentrate on the dynamics of the built environment. Sociologists and geographers and planners are better at that. I don’t focus just on infrastructure because I don’t believe infrastructure acts in isolation. I’ve positioned myself from the beginning to be in the middle, where a road we build doesn’t act in isolation from the neighborhoods and communities around it. That’s where I work. It is harder because you have to learn the language of people who understand community dynamics – and not many people are willing to do that.

Do you feel your approach is novel? That the profession of civil engineering was ignoring the societal impact of civil engineering projects?

I think that was true in the past, but it is changing. There was a tendency to just build infrastructure and not think about the implications to the communities. I think over time, public policy and practices of implementing infrastructure in cities and at the state level has changed and people are much more cognizant that you can’t really put a highway down the middle of a minority community and tell them “tough shit.” This is no longer acceptable.

So, it’s not just about the building or the structure…

It’s about who gets the benefit, who loses, who is marginalized.

Is this an enlightened Western concept or worldwide?

People all over the world struggle with how to mitigate poverty and bring communities on the fringe back into society. That is a struggle everyone has, and engineering can either be part of that struggle or choose to step away from that struggle.

What was the defining moment that you decided to study the social impact of engineering?

I was a young faculty member when I went to an ASCE conference. I sat at a table with a president and a VP of two big engineering firms. One was from Bechtel. You would know the other firm. We started talking about environmental issues and what is engineering’s role when confronted with significant environmental issues. Both firms had the opportunity to bid on the Three Gorges dam. Bechtel decided not to bid because of environmental concerns. The other firm had been doing mining operations in Bolivia and other countries in South America and that person said they would do what theri client asked of them. I thought of the two people as representing opposite magnetic poles. Which pole should I align myself with?

Both positions were totally understandable. Maybe one firm can’t afford to walk away from a big job for moral or ethical issues. But we can all say to our clients that there is a way things can be done, things that may cost more money, but you should consider the overall benefits. Think what it could do for marginalized communities, for everybody. We’re bound by ethical and moral principles to make engineering be a net positive—not just work for our client.

When did you become aware of marginalized communities?

When I was a kid, in first or second grade, in El Paso. There was a brick foundry. I’d watch as the smoke from the foundry would drift over to the Mexican side of the border and hover over the clay homes built into the sides of the hills. I remember thinking how it was so strange that the American side of the border had no pollution and the Mexican side had so much of it.

Is there engineering blood in the family?

My grandfather was a three-star general in the United States Air Force. I was very close to him. Our family led a life of relative privilege. His message to me from the time I was old enough to hear it was “with great privilege comes great responsibility.”

You know Spiderman said that about “great power,” right?

I know [laughing]. My daughter told me. It’s a cliché. Actually, it’s older than that¹. But that was pounded into me, and as an engineer it has a special meaning. It means we should do more than build big things. It means thinking about how to make it better for society, not just for a few but for many and – very importantly — for the disenfranchised. That has always been how I think about my work.

I called my grandfather while was still in high school and told him I was going to go the Air Force Academy, follow in his footsteps. There was a long pause – the longest pause of my life.

“You know, kid, I don’t think that’s such a great idea,” he said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because you have trouble following rules.”

So off I went to UT Austin to study civil engineering. Then University of Maine, then University of Washington.

Will your children follow in your footsteps?

No, no… We have four adopted kids. My spouse is an art historian. The kids were very clear they were not going into either art history or engineering.

You mention being able to afford to walk away from a project that has negative social impact? Who can really do that?

If we can afford to be conscientious, we should. That’s it in a nutshell. Frankly, there’s very few who can’t afford to have a conscience at the table. You might not win the contract, or you might not get everything you feel would make the project better for everyone, but you can afford to say something at the table about your position on it, like, “We know about the infrastructure design and facility issues but there are aspects you haven’t thought about.”

Tell us more about your work with air pollution.

Early in my career, I was in California trying to estimate the amount of particles coming out of the exhaust pipes of vehicles and help NGOs and cities figure out ways to reduce tailpipe emissions. We would measure tailpipe emissions of a car and generalize for millions of cars so we could replicate the way people drive from place to place in different cars and different types of roadways. We’d compare our predictions against measurements to come up with an uncertainty. We went one step further and asked about the policies that cities can enact to reduce emissions.

Have you studied the adoption of electric vehicles?

I am currently looking into the big gap in technology adoption between low income households and high income households. High income households adopt new technologies very quickly, but low-income households often can’t for cost reasons. California found this out when they offered incentives for EVs but they benefitted only the rich people. They don’t need the incentives, right? But they’re the ones who took them. So, we’re working on a big project that looks at the penetration of EVs into low and moderate income neighborhoods and how that could lead to changes in policy for incentives.

EVs are a tiny portion of our vehicles. A policy incentive uptake is one thing, but there are two barriers to higher penetration of EVs. One, of course, is their cost. Many low income households have to get used cars. But buy a used electric car and chances are the batteries are shot. The other problem is having to charge the EV at home. Low income households are already on an energy poverty cycle. They have to pay the car’s energy, either through their electricity bill or with gasoline, and may be living on the edge.

We’re trying to think of strategies to overcome the transportation inequality so we don’t have this huge gap between who gets new technology EVs and who doesn’t.

Tesla jumps to mind. Their EVs are not cheap. In China, there is an electric car that sells for $4,500. Those could help with transportation inequality, right?

That’s a solution. But the issue is not a solution, but the implementation.

You were named a Guggenheim Fellow for you pro bono work. Can you tell me more?

I do work for litigation for low income communities when they are up against some form of injustice. For example, in one city there was an infrastructure project that impinged on a community in a way that it might not in other places. I have a small company that does technical work pro bono, or for a third or half the cost: Sustainable Systems Research, LLC.

We run out of time, if not questions. I end by promising Deb Niemeier that if our profession had saints, she would be sure to be nominated. She seems surprised to hear that. She does not think herself as deserving of sainthood. But a saint would think that.