About Kirsten

I started Process Profiles, a one-person boutique consulting practice, in 1995.  I was born to be a chemical engineer and helping clients understand and improve their environmental performance is my thing. Some of the work I'm most proud of includes

• contributing foundationally to technical studies and communications that led to legislation that reduced the copper in brake pads in Washington and California

• helping to shape national policy by quantifying the climate impacts of imported LNG versus coal for electricity generation

• assisting a refinery with a project that increased production while eliminating millions of therms of fuel combustion annually and reaping GHG reduction incentives

• helping save a personal care product manufacturer significant waste haulage fees by identifying operating practices that were overwhelming their wastewater treatment equipment 

I have a broad depth of knowledge because while I bring the same set of tools to all of my projects, they've all been one-offs.  In addition to consulting, I taught an upper division/graduate student elective on pollution prevention in the chemical engineering department at California State University, Long Beach for two years and co-authored many handbooks, textbooks, and other teaching and outreach materials.  I served on many technical peer review panels for EPA grants and graduate research scholarships.  I contribute to the literature as an author and as a peer reviewer for submissions to many journals including Environmental Science and Technology and Journal of Cleaner Production.  

I graduated from University of California, Los Angeles with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering in 1990 (cum laude).  I'm a licensed professional chemical engineer in California (#CH 5041) and a member of the American Chemical Society (where I've served as session co-organizer, 2023-present), the International Society for Industrial Ecology, and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (where I served on the Virtual Local Section Executive Committee as chair and programming director, 2018-2023).

In my spare time, I spend time with friends and family, sing in a choir, play in a ukulele band, do trail maintenance, and defend science on social media.  I have four very good-looking, exceptionally charming, smarter-than-average grandchildren.