Dustin Mulvaney (2004)

Fellowship Year: 2004
Academic Background: University of California, Santa Cruz - Ph.D. 2007- (Environmental Studies)
Current Position: STS Postdoctoral Scholar, University of California, Berkeley , Research Scientist, Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition
Dustin is a Science, Technology, and Society Postdoctoral Scholar at UC Berkeley, and Switzer Leadership Fellow with the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. He received a Ph.D. from the Department of Environmental Studies at University of California at Santa Cruz, and received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and a M.S. in Environmental Policy Studies from the New Jersey Institute of Technology. He has worked as an process engineer for a Fortune 500 chemical manufacturer and later as a engineering group leader for a venture capital start-up that developed groundwater remediation technology. With the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC), Dustin researches environmental, health, and safety issues in the photovoltaic (PV) energy industry for their "just and sustainable solar PV" campaign. The first phase in their campaign is to ensure that the PV industry does not pose the same problems as the computer industry does with e-waste, where people in developing countries use primitive and dangerous techniques for removing valuable materials from toxic ones in circuit boards and other computer components. Much like computers, PV technologies have both valuable and toxic materials. SVTC is promoting extended producer responsibility in the PV industry so they are required to take back PV modules at the end of their life. This encourages product stewardship and design for recycling in an industry that relies on a green reputation. A number of PV technologies rely on toxic materials such as lead, cadmium, selenium, and arsenic, raising questions about how well is the industry protecting worker health and safety and emissions to the environment. Rapid growth in the industry has led to several problems in their supply chains according to reports in the media about chemical pollution and worker deaths. Dustin's work is working with colleagues on finding for opportunities for green chemistry and inherently safer design in the PV industry. Dustin's research at the University of California, Berkeley focuses on the ways that life cycle analysis is used to make decisions about renewable energy deployment, particularly PV and biofuels. He is looking at how life cycle analysis is used generate metrics such as energy payback and a host of others, and how these are used (or not used/misused) to justify and oppose investments, regulatory decisions, and technological design in renewables. He is interested in how these knowledges are conmensurated with knowledge produced from other frameworks in the decision making process. Dustin's Ph.D. research focused on local and state regulations for genetically engineered organisms (GEOs), with attention to the role that social movements and political economic forces play in influencing containment policy on pharmaceutical corn, California rice, and transgenic salmon.
Expertise: Environmental Justice, Energy & Climate Change, Sustainable Ag / Food Policy