Kathy Himes always knew she had a split personality. She likes to teach and she is drawn to technical work. At Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, she gets to do both.

She works on a team whose mission is to protect and improve air quality in the Puget Sound area. A typical day includes interpreting and summarizing data for different audiences, responding to questions, and generally supporting the agency’s emissions reduction programs.

The job is technically challenging, and it gives her an opportunity to interact with a wide variety of people: engineers, scientists, planners, government officials, the media, health professionals, and community leaders and activists.

“It’s exciting to work in this field when so much is going on both locally and globally right now,” she said. Fuel and energy are hot topics that are directly relevant to her work.

Her background prepared her for the full range of job responsibilities. She has a strong interest in education, culture, and communities. She taught math and science in rural West Africa in the Peace Corps, and has worked as an outdoor education naturalist, museum docent, and horseback riding instructor.

Her technical résumé includes an undergraduate degree in engineering from the University of Michigan, volunteering with the United States Geological Service, fellowships with the Department of Energy (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), and private consulting as an environmental engineer and project manager.

A desire to explore how the environment affects us and how we affect the environment led her to environmental health—“a perfect fit in my search for a career that includes both aspects”—and to the UW. She studied with Rich Fenske and was “a frequent interloper” in John Kissel’s lab.

Her thesis work involved pesticide exposures of children of agricultural workers in eastern Washington. She worked on one technical component of a much larger issue with “a very human component.”

She graduated in 2003 and taught part-time at an international school in South America, traveled, and volunteered. She was always in search of a job that was technically challenging but also included a lot of interaction. And she wanted to put down roots in the Pacific Northwest. The job at the Clean Air Agency provides the fit she was seeking.

Her advice for current students is to explore courses outside of our department. “I got a lot out of some courses I took in other Public Health departments, as well as an oceanography course.” She would also encourage them to take advantage of outreach opportunities. “The department’s ‘Tox in a Box’ is a terrific program,” she said.

The most valuable thing she learned at DEOHS was to quickly read a journal article and take away the main points.

She encourages other students to follow her footsteps. “There’s a lot of energy (no pun intended) in this field right now.” Our understanding of air quality is constantly changing and expanding, she explained, with more information on human health and global climate health.

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