Faculty & Staff

Developed by the Yale School of the Environment and the Center for Green Chemistry and Engineering, this certificate program prominently features Yale faculty lecturing in their areas of expertise. In addition, renowned faculty and practitioners from around the world contribute significantly to the learner’s experience by providing video content and synchronous lecture sessions. Our approach is to promote a blend of diverse perspectives for online learners to gain a broad base of knowledge and networking opportunities to draw upon in their future work. 

The design and development of this certificate is a result of a collaborative effort between faculty and staff from the Yale School of the Environment, the Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering and collaborators across the university and beyond, including the Yale Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning and the Yale Broadcast Studio.

Paul T. Anastas, Ph.D.

Paul T. Anastas has faculty appointments in the School of the Environment, School of Pubic Health, Department of Chemistry, and Department of Chemical Engineering. In addition, Prof. Anastas serves as the Director of the Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering at Yale. Anastas took public service leave from Yale to serve as the Assistant Administrator for the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Agency Science Advisor from 2009-2012. From 2004 -2006, Paul Anastas served as Director of the ACS Green Chemistry Institute in Washington, D.C. He was previously the Assistant Director for the Environment in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy where he worked from 1999-2004. Trained as a synthetic organic chemist, Dr. Anastas received his Ph.D. from Brandeis University and worked as an industrial consultant. He is credited with establishing the field of green chemistry during his time working for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as the Chief of the Industrial Chemistry Branch and as the Director of the U.S. Green Chemistry Program. Dr. Anastas has published widely on topics of science through sustainability including eleven books, such as Benign by Design, Designing Safer Polymers, Green Engineering, and his seminal work with co-author John Warner, Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice.

Julie B. Zimmerman, Ph.D.

Julie Zimmerman is an internationally recognized engineer whose work is focused on advancing innovations in sustainable technologies. Dr. Zimmerman serves as Yale's inaugural Vice Provost for Planetary Solutions. She holds joint appointments as a Professor in the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and School of the Environment at Yale University and serves as the Deputy Director of Center for Green Chemistry & Green Engineering at Yale.

Her pioneering work established the fundamental framework for her field with her seminal publications on the “Twelve Principles of Green Engineering” in 2003. The framework, in conjunction with Green Chemistry, is guiding the innovation of products and processes in academia and industry including her own research group on topics that include breakthroughs for the integrated biorefinery, carbon dioxide valorization, designing safer chemicals and materials, novel materials for water treatment, and analyses of the water-energy nexus. Professor Zimmerman is the co-author of the textbook, Environmental Engineering: Fundamentals, Sustainability, Design that is used in the engineering programs at leading universities domestically and abroad. In addition, Dr. Zimmerman is the Editor in Chief for Environmental Science & Technology, is a Member of the Connecticut Academy of Sciences, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Prior to coming to Yale University, Dr. Zimmerman was a program manager at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency where she established the national sustainable design competition, P3 (People, Prosperity, and Planet) Award, which has engaged thousands of students from hundreds of universities across the U.S. since its inception in 2004. Dr. Zimmerman earned her B.S. from the University of Virginia and her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan jointly from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the School of Environmental and Sustainability.

Margaret E. Kerr, Ph.D.

Margaret Kerr is Visiting Professor at the Yale School of the Environment and and Director of Education at the Center for Green Chemistry and Engineering. Dr. Kerr received her B.S. degree in Chemistry from the University of Maine and her Ph.D. from Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT in Inorganic Chemistry. She did post-doctoral research at the University of Florida and was offered a position as a Senior Staff Scientist at Fina Oil and Chemical in Houston, TX. She worked for two years developing metallocene catalysts for polypropylene synthesis before taking a position as a faculty member at Worcester State University in Worcester, MA where she was a Professor of Chemistry with a focus on research in green chemistry. She was awarded a Fulbright Senior Scholar Grant in 2007 to promote green chemistry curriculum development at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand and was awarded a Fulbright Specialist grant in 2023 at Chulalongkorn University to promote green chemistry practices within industry in Thailand.