Brooke Paccione ’21 Receives Grant for Sustainable Development Project

By Bryan Hay

Brooke Paccione ’21

Brooke Paccione ’21 has received a grant from ASTM International to support a civil engineering senior capstone project to review a remediation plan and envision the use of a brownfield site in Easton.

A brownfield is a property that is currently vacant or underused and its redevelopment is hampered by the presence of a pollutant or contaminant. Cleaning up these areas can transform them into community and economic assets for the local area.

The $500 grant from ASTM, which publishes voluntary technical standards for materials, products, systems, and services, will support her work with other students and Arthur Kney, professor of civil engineering, in developing a conceptual site model for a former scrap yard on Bushkill Drive, which is being remediated by Lafayette College and the City of Easton. (Read ASTM’s news release)

Students will identify recognized environmental conditions and develop a site model based on ASTM standards and intended future use of the site. Final models will be presented to Easton officials, Lafayette College, professionals from HDR, an engineering and architecture firm, and the Brownfield Coalition of the Northeast.

“Environmental site assessment is a topic I am very passionate about, so I am excited to learn more about the work that goes into remediating and redeveloping a site,” Paccione says.

“As a part of the grant, I will write a paper that will be published by ASTM on this capstone project,” she says. “I am grateful for the opportunity to share information on the topic through my paper and hopefully emphasize the importance of environmental site assessment in protecting human and environmental health, safety, and welfare.” 

Paccione says she enjoys working with Kney, whose passion for this topic provides as close an experience to the working world as possible through the various components of this project.

“I am excited to work with Prof. Kney on developing my paper and this capstone project throughout the spring and to continue learning about the field from both him and the professionals who assist with the course,” she says.

“Working with students like Brooke is certainly one of the best perks of my job,” says Kney, adding that meaningful professional connections to real-time classroom activities continue to be an important enhancement to helping faculty meet their responsibility of delivering the promise of excellence in teaching.

“That’s a promise to our students of which our community is very proud, and I am grateful to professional organizations like ASTM for supporting our mission,” Kney says.