PAUL V Roberts

PAUL V.
ROBERTS
INTRODUCTION
Paul V. Roberts (November 27, 1938 - February 2006) was a prominent environmental engineer.
He made major contributions to environmental engineering by applying fundamental principles
of mass transport and chemistry to drinking water treatment and wastewater reclamation
research. An author of more than 200 scientific publications, he was a member of the National
Academy of Engineering and the Swiss Academy of Sciences.
BIOGRAPHY
Born Nov. 27, 1938, Roberts earned a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering at Princeton
University in 1960 and, six years later, a doctorate at Cornell University, where he met Inge
Rsch. They married in 1965.
After graduating from Cornell, Roberts spent nearly a year teaching at the Universidad Catlica
de Valparaso and the Universidad Tcnica Federico Santa Mara in Chile, and worked as a
process engineer with Chevron Research Company in Richmond, California from 1968 to 1971,
he was a research engineer at the Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park. However, his
interest in nature and increasing concern about industrial pollution led him to change his career
goals and devote his life to solving environmental problems. To that end, he enrolled in the
Stanford School of Engineering's Honors Cooperative Program, earning a master's degree in
1971. For the next five years, Roberts worked in the engineering department at the Swiss Federal
Institute of Water Supply and Water Pollution Control. In 1973, he was promoted to department
head and also became a lecturer at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.
In 1976, he accepted an offer from Stanford as research professor of environmental engineering.
He was appointed full professor in 1986 and to the Peck Professorship in 1989. Roberts served as
associate chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering from 1985 to 1990.
He became emeritus in 2000. . In 1989 Roberts was named the C.L. Peck, Class of 1906
Professor in the School of Engineering.
Paul V. Roberts died on Feb. 12, 2006 of leukemia at his home in Cupertino. He was 67. A
memorial service to honor and celebrate his life was held Feb. 22 at Memorial Church.
CONTRIBUTIONS
Paul Roberts was a pioneer in applying fundamental principles of mass transport and chemistry
to engineered environmental systems. His broad body of work spans such topics as reclaimed
wastewater, drinking water disinfection, adsorption and volatilization of organic contaminants
during water and wastewater treatment, contaminant transport in groundwater, and multiphase
flow in porous media. He is perhaps best known for conceiving and directing the first and
probably the most definitive field study ever conducted on the movement and fate of hazardous
chemicals in groundwater at the Borden site in Canada. In this study, his team clearly
demonstrated the scientific value of carefully designed large-scale field experiments to test
hypotheses, to validate mathematical models, to generate understanding of important natural
processes, and to uncover still more important questions in need of better theoretical
understanding.
In his initial work at Stanford, Roberts directed a field study to evaluate the potential for
reclaiming wastewater from the city of Palo Alto by using advanced treatment processes
followed by injection and storage in the aquifer below the San Francisco Bay wetlands. This
pioneering research focused on potentially hazardous chemicals in the water and their movement
and fate in the environment. "This was the beginning of Stanford's many significant
contributions in this area.
In 1980, as groundwater contamination was becoming a nationwide concern, Roberts organized
an international team of hydrologists, chemists, microbiologists and engineers to carry out the
Borden field experiment in Canada, widely recognized as the most definitive study of the
processes affecting the movement and fate of hazardous chemicals in groundwater.
Roberts' colleagues remember him as an extraordinary educator who deserves much credit for
helping Stanford's Environmental Engineering and Science Graduate Program obtain its top
ranking. "The esprit de corps that developed in the Environmental Engineering and Science
Program with Paul's warmth and generosity helped in creating an exceptional teaching and
research atmosphere for us all," McCarty recalled. "Those were splendid years, ones that not
only we but also generations of students will remember with fondness for the rest of our lives."
The author of more than 200 publications, Roberts was a member of the Swiss Academy of
Sciences and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1997. Among his honors
were the 1989 Scientific and Technical Achievement Award from the Environmental Protection
Agency and the 2003 Founders Award from the Association of Environmental Engineering and
Science Professors.
Roberts is survived by his wife, Inge Roberts; three children, Nina, Christopher and Sebastian;
and nine grandchildren. The family asks those wishing to express their condolences with a gift to
make a contribution to the Peninsula Open Space Trust, 3000 Sand Hill Road, Bldg. 1, Suite 155,
Menlo Park, CA 94025.
AWARDS AND DISTINCTIONS
United States Environmental Protection Agency Scientific and Technical
Achievement Award (1989)
United States National Committee of the International Association on Water
Pollution Research and Control Founders Award (1990)
Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors Founders
Award (2003)
American Water Works Association Academic Achievement Award
Elected member of the National Academy of Engineering (1997)

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