Leaders in Engineering Seminar Series
Falling Into
Leadership
Volunteering, networks, and the courage to be a beginner
- Department Chair at CU Boulder
- Past President, Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP)
- Past President, International Ultraviolet Association (IUVA)
- Drinking water guidelines development with the World Health Organization
- 2025 A.P. Black Research Award, AWWA
None of these were on a five-year plan. Each one grew out of the last.
01
Volunteer — especially before anyone asks
02
Leverage your networks (they are family)
03
Follow your interests, not your plan
04
Be your authentic self at work
05
Embrace your inner imposter
06
Fail without feeling like a failure
- Cornell for environmental engineering — the Ag College charged in-state tuition
- Learned to drive a tractor. Loved Africana studies. Hated math and physics.
- Burned out. Left Cornell after two years.
"I needed a break, so I left Cornell after two years and moved to Amherst. I wanted to rethink my academic direction."
On the cover of BioCycle as a grad student at UC Davis
- A year and a half in western Massachusetts, taking classes at UMass
- Traveling the country — "lots of Grateful Dead concerts, the great American road trip"
- A New York Times article about cleaning wastewater with constructed wetlands
- The professor behind it was back at Cornell — in the department I had just left
The break wasn't wasted time. It was the space I needed to find the thing I cared about.
With daughter Yarrow at Dead & Company, Boulder
- Returned to Cornell — talked Prof. Bill Jewell into letting me take his grad class
- Anaerobic digestion research — literally sorting garbage into organic and plastic
- Joined his spin-off Microgen; the pilot moved to UC Davis
- At UC Davis, Jeannie Darby asked: "Would you be interested in working on a UV disinfection project?"
The UV project came to me as an unanticipated opportunity. I was drawn to it immediately.— A.P. Black Award profile, JAWWA Nov 2025
Jeannie Darby — UC Davis
My advisor. High standards, meticulous writer, structured collaborator. Her daughter was born a day after my son.
Jim Malley — UNH
The "lone wolf" of UV for drinking water. Took a long walk with me at a conference and invited me in.
Jim Bolton
The scientific guru of UV fundamentals. We wrote papers standardizing UV experimental methods for the research community.
Phil Singer — UNC
Walked up and said he was my "academic great grandfather." Key mentor for my early years as a professor.
- — an NSF program manager, to me, early in my career
- I was looking for direction. I didn't get it from the funding agency.
- I got it from Jim Malley on a walk at a symposium in Houston.
- He invited me onto a proposal as co-PI. That collaboration launched my career.
The people in your community will tell you what the gatekeepers get wrong.
- Finish PhD at UC Davis. Meet Jim Malley, Jim Bolton, Jen Clancy.
- Four of us help found the International Ultraviolet Association.
- AWWA Research Foundation, EPA LT2 UV dose tables, UV Disinfection Guidance Manual.
- AWWA trustee. Founded the Emerging Investigator Lecture Series.
- President, International UV Association.
No one appointed the four of us. We showed up and did the work.
First steering committee of the IUVA, UV News Vol. 1, 1999
The President's Letter is usually "news and initiatives." I used mine to talk about the hard stuff.
"Today I want to inspire you in a different way through discussing a problem in our community that we have not had the chance to directly address. We have a harassment problem."— President's Letter, EES, 2020 ("Let's Talk: AEESP Tackles Harassment")
- One committee invitation led to another
- Contributing to the WHO Guidelines for Drinking-Water Quality
- USAID-funded sustainable WASH research in East Africa
- International UV installations: Rwanda, Peru, India
Water and culture are inseparable. To create engineering solutions without considering the cultural implications is a recipe for failure.— on 6 months studying the Ganges
UV disinfection installation at a hospital in Rwanda
- I felt my work and effort as Chair was appreciated
- I learned a lot on the job and want to make use of it
- I really like our staff and trust we can grow even stronger
- Continually impressed by CEAE colleagues — want to promote their careers
- Navigating challenging times — fighting together for our shared values
Operations
- ABET re-accreditation
- Strategic plan, engaged External Advisory Board
- Navigating the new budget model
People & policy
- Teaching load, salary equity, RPT criteria
- Listening sessions — teaching, research, assistant profs
- Faculty-staff breakfasts, faculty stories
Leadership, in practice, is mostly listening, writing policy, and showing up to breakfast.
- Humility and appreciation for learning from mistakes
- Portfolio manager — value diversity of contributions
- Work for the common good — departmental citizenship
- Facilitate individual and collective success
- Look for new initiatives — a top department that stagnates won't stay one
- Clear communication and transparency
- My first conference as a new faculty member — Houston, honoring a pioneer
- My results challenged conventional wisdom on photoreactivation
- The person who championed that view was speaking right before me
- I was terrified
- We discussed my work afterwards — and ended up collaborating
The barrier I had perceived between me and the experts I looked up to — it dissolved.
- My grad students used to babysit my kids — and then tutor them
- My kids worked in the lab in high school
- I took my family to conferences and research sites in Rwanda, India, Peru
- Three publications with my daughter Yarrow — now finishing her PhD at UNC, in the department Phil Singer built
The circle closes. The network is the family is the work.
With son Malakai, Fulbright sabbatical, Nova Scotia
With partner Rebecca and dog Charlie, Boulder
- Policy: teaching load equity, merit review, chair elections
- External Advisory Board initiative
- Functionalize gift funds toward strategic investments
- Maintain top-10 / top-20 rankings; replacement faculty lines
- Roll out CEAE Professional MS degree and certificate programs
- New minors: Civil/Architectural Engineering in Space, AI in Civil Engineering
01 VOLUNTEER
Four of us founded IUVA. No one asked.
02 NETWORKS
A walk in Houston with Jim Malley built a career.
03 INTERESTS
A NYT article pulled me back to Cornell.
04 AUTHENTIC
I wrote the President's Letter about harassment.
05 IMPOSTER
The expert you fear often becomes a collaborator.
06 FAIL
NSF said no future in UV. They were wrong.
Thank you
Questions?
Linden Research Group, Rocky Mountain National Park
Karl G. Linden · karl.linden@colorado.edu