David Kriebel
Co-Director, Lowell Center for Sustainable Production, Professor and Chair of UMass Lowell Department of Work Environment
Email:
Phone Number: 978-934-3270
Fax Number: 978-452-5711
Address:
Lowell Center for Sustainable Production
University of Massachusetts Lowell
One University Avenue
Lowell, MA 01854
Biography
Dr. David Kriebel co-directs the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production and serves as a Professor and Chair of the Department of Work Environment at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. David Kriebel received his master’s degree in physiology (1983) and doctorate in epidemiology (1986) from the Harvard School of Public Health. He did post-doctoral work on exposure assessment for epidemiology with Dr. Tom Smith at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, and spent a year as a scholar in residence at the Center for the Study and Prevention of Cancer in Florence, Italy on a Fulbright Fellowship. Since 1988, he has been on the faculty at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Dr. Kriebel’s research focuses on the epidemiology of occupational injuries, cancer, and non-malignant respiratory disease. He has published on various aspects of epidemiologic methods, particularly on the use of quantitative exposure data in epidemiology. He has been active in developing dosimetric models to better understand the effects of aerosols on the lungs. He teaches introductory and advanced courses in epidemiology, risk assessment, and research synthesis. Dr. Kriebel has served on several National Academy of Sciences committees on environmental health and has written and lectured on the role of epidemiologic evidence in science policy decision making.
Profile
David Kriebel grew up as a Quaker and learned that helping others and changing the world for the better were what gave purpose to life. At the same time, he was always interested in science, seeing it as one of the most powerful ways to use our intellects to improve the world.
He found that public health was a field where he could combine his love of science with his aspiration to help others. But, while Kriebel found that public health was good at diagnosing problems, it was less equipped to solve them. He helped to found the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production to be a place where a big vision of how the world could be improved is translated it into small, practical steps. It’s important to see small successes, he holds, because these build confidence in the possibility of the big changes that are needed to put society on a sustainable path.
Kriebel says that some of the biggest obstacles to the fundamental changes needed in how our society lives on the planet are myths – mistaken ways of thinking which block our ability to change. One common myth is that society cannot have both economic prosperity and environmental sustainability – because they are antagonistic. Even most environmentalists accept this myth, because they see it reinforced in the seemingly endless battles they must fight for small gains in environmental quality. But in fact there are often “win-win” solutions which are economically viable and lighten our impacts on the planet. Often these can be found by redesigning systems of production instead of spending lots of money to clean up pollution after it’s been produced. Dispelling this myth of antagonism is one of the key goals of the Lowell Center.
Another myth Kriebel identifies is embedded deep in Western (especially American) thought: “science and technology can solve anything.” This myth perpetuates a vision of “conquering nature” rather than living in harmony with it. Many “technological fixes” turn out to cause unintended consequences—climate change prominent among them. Science has a crucial role to play in the path to sustainability, but what’s needed is science which evaluates the complex systems in which the solutions to environmental problems will be found, coupled with humility about the many uncertainties which will accompany any new technology.
“I don’t think I would do this work if I weren’t optimistic,” Kriebel admits. He has confidence though that “just a little push at the right place and time”—such as dispelling these myths—can trigger critical actions down the right path for a company, and community or a nation.
