Mechanical Engineering

Newsletter Archives; Winter 2000

Assistant Professor Joyce Smith Cooper

Professor Joyce Cooper Brings "Design for Environment" and "Industrial Ecology" to M.E.

Joyce Smith Cooper joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering as an Assistant Professor effective July 1999. Professor Cooper brings to the department research and educational programs in Design for Environment and Industrial Ecology. Design for Environment(DFE) is an emerging discipline whose goal is to include consideration of human health, the environment, and natural resources during product design. DFE covers the entire life cycle of a product. This life cycle includes all activities required to bring a product to market, the use and maintenance of a product, and the recovery of materials at the end of a product's life.

DFE is a critical component of the Industrial Ecology model. Industrial Ecology provides a framework to design, redesign, and manage eco-efficient industrial systems that mimic the cyclic patterns of materials and energy flow found in natural ecosystems. DFE supports decision-making within individual components of an Industrial Ecosystem and the Industrial Ecology model provides design objectives for all components.

Professor Cooper has expertise in both Mechanical and Environmental Engineering. Her background starts with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Her professional experience includes manufacturing engineering at General Motors, Polaroid, and General Electric. She used these experiences to emphasize manufacturability in the design of electronic packaging for E-Systems, now part of Raytheon.

In environmental engineering, Professor Cooper holds a M.S. and Ph.D. from Duke University. Her graduate work focused on the identification of best-in-class manufacturing based on environmental and economic performance measures. While in graduate school, she interned at the North Carolina Office of Waste Reduction. She provided pollution prevention technical assistance to small and medium sized manufacturers. She also spent time in Washington, DC as a Congressional Fellow in the Office of Technology Assessment.

Prior to joining M.E., Professor Cooper spent two years with Battelle Memorial Institute's Life Cycle Management Group., where she helped major chemical, electronic, and automotive manufacturers develop business and product development strategies and environmental performance metrics. She also studied and documented best practices in environmental cost accounting and developed methods to consider environmental issues during Department of Defense engineering decision-making.

As a faculty member, her efforts will be targeted towards five research and educational objectives:
  1. Innovation in DFE and Industrial Ecology related to extended product responsibility and environmental management systems and standards.
  2. The investigation of opportunities to integrate DFE into the design process, Computer Aided Design systems, and information management systems.
  3. Regional application of Industrial Ecology concepts in the Pacific Northwest related to technology and infrastructure needs and deployment implications.
  4. The integration of DFE and Industrial Ecology into new and existing courses and curriculum within the UW and especially the Dept of Mechanical Engineering.
  5. Interdisciplinary education on the engagement of all engineering disciplines, business and engineering management, and public policy.
As part of her research and education activities, Professor Cooper will continue her involvement in the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) research and education community. As a DFE tool, LCA provides a protocol to assess the resource, human health, and environmental impacts of a product system. Private and public sector organizations are increasingly using LCA. This interest is expected to grow because of emerging ISO14040 LCA standards, eco-labels, and other environmental certification programs; legislation and business initiatives necessitating products be returned to manufacturers after use; and public sector procurement requirements. While at UW, she will continue as coauthor of a column called "Life Cycle Assessment in North America" in the Journal of Industrial Ecology.

Professor Cooper is course coordinator of ME395: Introduction to Design and ME 498, a special topics course in Design for Environment. The former addresses design process and methodology, concept generation, reliability and feasibility, materials selection, design for manufacturing and cost, project management, and ethical, environmental, and legal issues. ME498 Design for Environment, places pollution prevention, resource conservation, LCA, extended product responsibility, and environmental economics and regulation within the context of product design.

Professor Cooper's research and educational activities will be centered in the Design for Environment Research Laboratory (MEB G20) scheduled to be completed early winter. It is the mission of the DFE Laboratory to integrate environmental considerations into the design process through education and research in Design for Environment and Industrial Ecology. The facility will include a library of DFE literature and computing resources supported by CAD, materials selection, and LCA tools and databases. Professor Cooper invites all that are interested in learning more about DFE research and educational activities to contact her at: cooper@me.washington.edu