Carnegie Mellon Professor H. Scott Matthews Receives Prestigious Laudise Award for Work in Industrial Ecology

June 29, 2007
Contact: Chriss Swaney
(412) 268-5776

PITTSBURGH—Carnegie Mellon University's H. Scott Matthews has received the prestigious Laudise Award for outstanding research in the area of industrial ecology from the International Society of Industrial Ecology in Toronto.

Matthews, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon, said he was both honored and pleased with the recognition.

"Scott is an outstanding young scholar, and this award is designed to recognize researchers under age 40 who are making a difference in helping us all get it right when it comes to industrial ecology," said Thomas Graedel, past president of the International Society of Industrial Ecology. Graedel, a professor of industrial ecology at Yale University, said Matthews is the third recipient of the award, which is named for the late AT&T Bell Lab researcher Robert Laudise.

"Scott's work is a perfect match for this award," said Chris Hendrickson, the Duquesne Light Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Carnegie Mellon. "His research has covered everything from use of alternative fuels like switchgrass to development of a Web site created to track life-cycle assessments of everyday activities, like the amount of pollution created from eating a hamburger to mowing the lawn," Hendrickson said.

In addition to his work on life-cycle assessment tools, Matthews is a recognized expert on the environmental impacts of information and communication technology products, beginning with a study on personal computer disposal he conducted in 1991 as an undergraduate at Carnegie Mellon. He has received five AT&T industrial ecology faculty fellowships and several teaching awards, and his work has been published in a wide variety of journals, including the American Society of Civil Engineers' Journal of Infrastructure Systems and Environmental Science and Technology. In the June 2007 issue of Environmental Science and Technology, he and Carnegie Mellon colleague Chris Weber describe how the U.S has reduced its increasing carbon emissions by importing more carbon-intensive goods from other countries.

Matthews, who serves as research director of Carnegie Mellon's Green Design Institute, also helped author a report that says the use of switchgrass could help break U.S. dependence on fossil fuels and curb growing transportation costs. The report found that the cellulosic ethanol derived from dry, brown switchgrass could be made in sufficient quantities to deliver 16 percent ethanol fuel to all consumers in the U.S.

Matthews received his bachelor's degree in computer engineering and engineering and public policy from Carnegie Mellon in 1992. He earned his master's degree in 1996 and his Ph.D. in 1999 from Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business.

About Carnegie Mellon: Carnegie Mellon is a private research university with a distinctive mix of programs in engineering, computer science, robotics, business, public policy, fine arts and the humanities. More than 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students receive an education characterized by its focus on creating and implementing solutions for real problems, interdisciplinary collaboration, and innovation. A small student-to-faculty ratio provides an opportunity for close interaction between students and professors. While technology is pervasive on its 144-acre campus, Carnegie Mellon is also distinctive among leading research universities for the world-renowned programs in its College of Fine Arts. For more, see www.cmu.edu.