Sustainability alum takes the 'hazard' out of 'hazardous waste'

June 4, 2013

Waste. Can’t live without it, and you certainly can’t live with it. So what do you do with it? And more importantly, what about the nasty, hazardous waste?

Bradley Baker, a native of Ahwatukee, is a hazardous waste compliance officer at the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) Waste Programs Division. He is responsible for keeping businesses and facilities up-to-date in hazardous waste regulations. blonde haired Bradley Baker wearing black suit and green shirt and tie standing Download Full Image

“Our mission is to protect and enhance public health and the environment in Arizona,” Baker says. “We do this mainly through our Waste Programs Division, Water Quality Division and Air Quality Division.”

Safer standards for environment, employees

According to ADEQ, there are over 400 listed chemicals or items that are considered “hazardous waste.” Simply put, if it burns, fumes, corrodes or reacts - it is hazardous. Waste items can include flammable solvents, strong acids and bases, prescription drugs, pesticides and heavy metals.

“The biggest responsibility I have at the ‘Q,’ as we call it, is to conduct inspections on facilities that are generating, transporting or treating hazardous waste,” Baker says. “If I notice an area of concern, I help that company gain compliance so they can have a safer work environment for their employees and potentially prevent future contamination of the environment.”

Courses evolve into job skills

Baker chose to attend Arizona State University for its science programs and ultimately graduated from the School of Sustainability in 2012. He first pursued a degree in chemistry before realizing the field wasn’t as interesting as he thought it would be. So with his family’s past experience in environmental fields, Baker decided to incorporate chemistry in a sustainable energy, materials, and technology concentration at the School.

“The courses that focused on environmental regulations, water and wastewater treatment prepared me for my current position at ADEQ,” he says. “These classes got me interested in environmental law and have been extremely helpful in how I understand and fulfill my job responsibilities.”

Real-world experience is a necessity

If it wasn’t for his internships with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Arizona Department of Health Services, Baker says he wouldn’t have gained his position at ADEQ right out of college.

“I almost entirely attribute me getting this position to the experience I had before,” he says. “I had already interned for the state and federal governments, and was doing environmental consulting with a small firm during the summers. This introduced me to the professional environmental world and what types of jobs I could have as a sustainability student.”

In the future, Baker plans to obtain a law degree, pursue the State Bar and use his education “to help further the betterment of the environment, as well as human health.

I learned from my grandfather and father that our resources are precious and pollution directly affects us all, even if we do not live directly next to a contamination source,” he says.

Get involved, future graduates

For those sustainability students beginning a job hunt of their own, Baker advises joining local sustainability organizations like Green Chamber: Greater Phoenix and Arizona Forward (formerly Valley Forward). In Baker’s case, internships played a major role in obtaining his current position.

“Find an internship, whether it is paid or unpaid,” he says. “I have well over a year’s worth of experience doing unpaid internships, and I would not have been able to apply for the jobs I did without them.”

And like most recent graduates entering the real world, Baker says there’s nothing like seeing your name and new career title in print on one job perk:

“Business cards!”

Sociologist has new ideas about why similar people are drawn together

ASU's David Schaefer has earned the Freeman Award from the International Network for Social Network Analysis for his research on defining the dynamics that govern how and why individuals choose their network associates.

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Sociologist has new ideas about why similar people are drawn together

June 4, 2013

Birds of a feather flock together. But why?

That is a mystery Arizona State University sociologist David Schaefer is trying to solve. Associate professor David Schaefer Download Full Image

His research, which focuses on defining the dynamics that govern how and why individuals choose their network associates, has earned him the Freeman Award from the International Network for Social Network Analysis.

As the recipient, Schaefer presented a one-hour plenary address at the INSNA’s annual Sunbelt Conference, held last month at the University of Hamburg.

The award is presented every other year to a distinguished, up-and-coming scholar “in the field of social networks for significant contributions to the scientific study of social structure.”

Schaefer is an associate professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

His exploration of friend selection processes and the origins of social network structures leads him to a variety of outlying research topics, including issues of health and inequality. But at the core of his work is the desire to understand why people often associate with those like themselves, a phenomenon known as homophily.

While the widely accepted reasons for homophily are preference and availability, Schaefer has his own ideas. He suggests that people often have the opportunity and desire to associate with people unlike themselves, yet maintain homophilous relationships.

“I have developed two new explanations that emphasize the endogenous sorting process whereby the relationships individuals develop are not necessarily with their ideal partners,” he says.

In the first case, he points to individuals who withdraw from social activity and form friendships with peers who are also marginalized in social networks.

In the other scenario, individuals who are excluded by their peers based on a particular trait, such as obesity, tend to find friends who are similarly excluded based on the same trait.

Schaefer sums up, “Both processes lead to homophily, but in neither case is it sought by the individuals involved. I tested these mechanisms in one study and found evidence that the former explains depression homophily among adolescents.”

Schaefer investigates a variety of ways in which social networks affect health outcomes, particularly regarding adolescents. His work, much of which is funded by the National Institutes of Health, has led to a number of discoveries.

“In one study, colleagues and I found that adolescents in poor health were more likely to occupy isolated or otherwise marginalized social network positions over time,” he noted.

Schaefer’s work into peer influence processes indicates that adolescent peers are more important for smoking initiation than for smoking cessation.

In another study, he determined that obesity and friendships are related through both friend selection and peer influence processes.

His most recent research aims to understand how adolescents choose “negative” influences. In particular, he is looking at what may lead adolescents to select friends engaged in substance abuse.

“I draw upon theory in criminology that implies adolescents with weak attachments to conventional society, such as parents, schools or church, are more likely to choose deviant peers,” he explains.

“Findings suggest that these friendship patterns are present, but they do not place adolescents at greater risk for negative influence,” Schaefer says. “Rather, this selection process magnifies the tendency for substance users to select one another as a friend.”

Schaefer has published and presented widely. The INSNA Committee states that “his papers exhibit originality in the questions addressed and their elaboration, and show excellence in executing and reporting the research.”