Callie Babbitt - Featured Faculty 2020

One particular challenge is managing wastes that result from introducing new products – like electronics, batteries, and solar panels – without considering what will happen to them at their end-of-life. Another challenge is in handling everyday wastes – like food waste and plastic packaging – that consumers are accustomed to simply throwing away. All of these wastes can have serious environmental impacts – from the release of hazardous metals to the production of climate-altering greenhouse gases when they decompose in landfills.

Dr. Callie Babbitt studies ways of turning harmful waste streams into valuable resources. This research uses concepts of circular economy and industrial ecology,, which aim to create industrial systems that mimic the closed-loop, regenerative, and sustainable cycles seen in nature. The research goal is to create technology, policy, and education solutions able to recover the value, energy, and materials in waste streams while creating the greatest economic and environmental benefit to society. In the case of electronic waste, for example, Dr. Babbitt’s research group studies how the used electronics we discard change over time, due to technology innovations and consumer purchase trends, and how to best update state e-waste policies and recycling technologies to keep pace with these changes. In the case of food waste, the research group evaluates the environmental tradeoffs of technologies that recover energy and bio-products from this waste stream, studies how to design transportation networks to effectively collect food waste, and researches ways to encourage consumers and businesses to separate, compost, or recycle their food waste.

These research efforts have been recognized by national and international awards, including a Fulbright U.S. Scholar award to study food waste solutions in Croatia and the NSF Faculty Early Career Development Program Award (CAREER). Since joining the RIT faculty in 2009, Dr. Babbitt has raised more than $3 Million in sponsored research to support research on sustainable solutions. She has advised, mentored, and funded over 80 graduate, undergraduate, and high school students, whose collaborative research has led to publication of over 65 contributions to scholarly journals and books, which have been cited by other scientists over 2,000 times Callie was a member of the U.S. Delegation to the 2017 G7 Environment Ministerial Meeting and on the Scientific Committee for the “Make our Planet Great Again” research initiative created by French President Emmanuel Macron. She serves an Associate Editor for the journal Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy, an Editorial Board member for the journal Resources, Recycling and Conservation, and an officer of the International Society of Industrial Ecology.

Callie W. Babbitt, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Golisano Institute for Sustainability