The Art of
Science
Kathy Koshland
'72
By Max Turner '98
When Cathy Koshland stared into
her canvas As a Haverford Fine Arts student in 1972, pondering the artwork's
imperfections, she had little knowledge that she was preparing herself
to study toxic emissions in combustion systems twenty-five years later.
Today, as the Wood-Calvert Professor in Engineering at Berkeley, Koshland
might appear to have thoroughly distanced herself from her undergraduate
days of painting and sculpting with Haverford professors Charles Stegeman
and Chris Cairns. But for Koshland, the distance is not so broad. "The
process of discovery that you use in art is not unlike the process of
discovery that you use in science." she begins, recalling an argument
she has made countless times before. "There is a question of how you view
the world and challenge yourself each time as you work through a painting
or a sculpture. You ask, 'what's wrong with this piece? What don't I understand?
Why am I not translating this or presenting it in a way that I want to?
What do I need to change or rethink?' Those are the kinds of things you
have to use in science all the time."
These days, when Koshland stares into her research on combustion systems, examining the toxic compounds that are emitted, she asks different questions but the process is the same. "The time I spent in art at Haverford did a couple critical things for me. One is it made me unafraid to use tools and get in and actually work in the laboratory. There's something very important about understanding how an experiment works, understanding the physical nature of things, having a respect for what it means to take media and materials and work with them to get an answer. And the other thing is the discipline of constantly challenging yourself and your notions and your conventions."
A philosophy of challenging conventions is a thread that runs through much of Koshland's life. Whether as a catalyst for Haverford's transition to coeducation, or as an engineering student at Stanford with little background in the sciences, she has surmounted obstacles with such an apparent ease that one wonders whether she was aware of their existence at all. Her success can be credited to an attitude toward life that craves challenge, but does not fear defeat. A mound of clay or a blank canvas posesses untold potential, but as every artist knows, it is only one in a series. Good or bad, the result is always a stepping stone to a higher appreciation for the medium. Listening to Koshland talk about the relationship between painting and engineering, it soon becomes apparent that the tools of art are in fact a metaphor for her entire life.
In 1973, Koshland found herself in Washington D.C. working for one of the units that was a forerunner for Department of Energy. Although the young art student considered the job a financial necessity more than a career ambition, it proved to be a turning point in her life. "It was the height of the energy crisis and I sort of got bitten," she recalls. "I suddenly had a completely different understanding of what it meant to study science and math, which I previously had no interest in. So, driven by energy security issues and energy technology issues, I went off to Stanford to go back to school."
At the age of 25, already raising her first child, Koshland enrolled in Stanford's mechanical engineering program. Encouraged by department chair Bill Reynolds who was interested in working with students of diverse acdemic backgrounds, she found few barriers in her path. "I think I was very directed, I knew exactly what I wanted to study, and I was willing to go in and say, 'If this fails, I can paint, or there are other things in my life that I can do.' It was very liberating to say, 'I'm not going to worry about it.'" Simply observing her own accomplishments at each stage fueled much of Koshland's progress and eventually led her to a career in research and teaching. "I wasn't dead set on being an engineer when I started. I thought I would end up doing more policy work. Then I gradually discovered that I really liked many aspects of engineering and that it was a field for which I was well suited."
Koshland has split her appointment between Public Health and Energy/Resources at the University of California at Berkeley. "The theme that runs through a great deal of my work is the integration of toxic substances in energy and environmental issues," she explains. "So in my engineering work, I'm involved in looking at the way in which toxic emissions (emissions other than CO or NO2) are formed in combustion systems. The work we do ranges from figuring out ways to detect and measure those compounds to understanding the chemistry and physics of why they are formed and what you can do to modify the combustion process itself to minimize those emissions." Koshland's split appointment gives her the opportunity to spend more time addressing energy-related and environmentally-related issues. Addressing questions of energy policy brings her full circle to her early days in Washington D.C. She is currently focused in the area of "green" manufacturing: sensitivity to potential health and environmental impacts that result from the creation, use, or disposal of industrial products.
Koshland's relationship with Haverford draws another circle on her life's canvas. She arrived at Haverford in 1970 as an exchange student from Smith, part of a new program that allowed several liberal arts colleges to experiment in coeducation. The daughter of Haverford alumnus Edmond Preston III '45, Koshland's familiarity with the college led her to spend her junior year in the suburbs of Philadelphia, just as many of her peers went off to study in Europe. The experience was a positive one, to the point that she was reluctant to leave at the end of the year. "When I came to Haverford there were a number of things that fell into place for me. One was discovering the Quaker ethos which was a very important, very subtle element," she recalls. "I also appreciated the level of intellectual discourse and the quality of the students, and I had not felt the same level of commitment in the classes at Smith. Haverford seemed very right for me." Near the end of the year, she and other women participating in the program spoke with President Jack Coleman requesting permission to stay and graduate. The Board of Managers granted their request one week before the start of classes in 1971. Koshland and five other women returned to Haverford and graduated that year with the nickname, "the refusenicks," so called because they refused to leave the school. The deliberations of the Board of Managers on the requests of those young women inspired the growth of ties between Haverford and Bryn Mawr that led ultimately to total coeducation.
Koshland now sits on that same Board that awarded her a Haverford diploma twenty-five years earlier. She finds the relationship between her experiences as a Board member and as professor to be mutually beneficial. "I love it as an academic, being able to see an institution from the top down, its scale totally different from Berkeley. It's a wonderful contrast."
Of particular importance to Koshland is the notion of professional public service. In her own career she has served as director of the Combustion Institute, as chair of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District Advisory Council, and has advised local public schools on their science curricula. Experiences such as these benefited the community as well as Koshland's own classroom, where she was able to make use of examples picked up in her service. "That's a part of a faculty member's life that students don't see. It's a part that is very enriching and very important that the public fails to see as well. Faculty are often involved in things outside the academy, but we're still accused of being sort of an ivory tower."
Koshland makes a point of crediting her family for its role in her success. She gained perspective on her own life from both her own parents and her parents-in-law. "My mother was a stay-at-home mom, and my mother-in-law (Marian Koshland) was a scientist and researcher and was on the Haverford Board of Managers." Although Cathy's decision to pursue a career involved difficult decisions and a good sense of balance, she has no regrets. With her husband Jim '73, the Koshlands have raised three children. "I think it's important for kids to have a parent who is happy and satisfied, and one is a better parent if you are engaged in things that are meaningful to you," she explains. From her father, who at the age of 72 picked up a watercolor brush and began painting for the first time, Koshland has learned that one is never too old for challenge and discovery.