Margrit von Braun

Margrit Cecile von Braun was born on May 8, 1952, in Huntsville, Alabama, to Wernher von Braun and Maria Luise Von Quistorp. Von Braun was the middle child out of the three children of Wernher and Maria. She had an elder sister, Iris Careen (born December 1948), and a younger brother, Peter Constantine (born June 1960). As an infant (around two years old), Margrit would often accompany Maria and Irene to go to Florida for vacation while Wernher worked. Margrit's father, due to his fame and prestige, was seldom found at home, to the point where in 1958 Margrit and Irene asked Wernher to "quit rocketry and buy a drugstore so that he would come home every day". Growing up, Margrit played the piano and cello. During this time, over weekends or on school holidays, Wernher returned home and spent time with his family, which often involved them taking down time at the lake and participating in a yearly Caribbean trip. Before the Apollo 11 flight, the von Braun family took a major trip in Europe, going to countries such as Greece and Germany. Von Braun went to secondary school at the Westminster School, a prestigious boarding and day school in Atlanta, from 1967-1970. While attending, she was vice-president of the Pep Club, dormitory president, a member of Mu Alpha Theta, and inducted into the National Honor Society. == Career ==

Research areas Geographical information systems and hazard management In April 1985, von Braun presented at the 11th Annual Research Symposium at the Hazardous Waste Engineering Research Laboratory. She presented "Demonstration of a Geographic Information System For Hazardous Waste Site Analyses". This topic later became the focus of her 1989 PhD thesis. In her 1989 thesis, she most notably looks at the potential risk of poorly stored groundwater contamination. Von Braun analyzed sites cleaned by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), and she created cartographic models that looked at the formation of contamination plumes at those sites and how the plumes traveled. She then looked at how the water table formed and how groundwater was managed by looking at well locations. Furthermore, she looked at how these factors contribute to the growth of the human population. The focus of the study was to determine the usefulness of XRF techniques on carpets and the lower limit of detection (LLD) on XRF technologies. To test for this, von Braun and her team created samples of carpet, each treated with a set amount of lead. They then emitted primary X-rays onto the carpet to detect lead by looking at the fluorescent X-rays. The study concluded that the amount of lead detected though XRF was within 2% of the actual amount. The study also concluded that the LLD for XRF was between 108 and 258 Pb/meter squared. Continuing her research, von Braun conducted studies discussing the seasonal variations of lead concentration in residential house dust throughout communities in Northern Idaho. She was the second author of a 2006 paper on the subject. The focus of the study was to investigate whether residential house dust lead concentrations in non-contaminated or "background" communities are significantly affected by these variations. The findings did not reach a concrete conclusion on the seasonality of lead levels in house dust despite recognizing the dust as a severe danger. Von Braun claims that the ambiguity surrounding this issue comes from the house dust's reliance on a plethora of erratic factors, such as weather, house age, use of leaded paint, tenant habits, and traffic frequency. These variables could be dependent or independent of the season. However, a significant discovery made by Von Braun and other researchers was that young children are the most susceptible to lead exposure and that the most frequent exposure comes from house dust. Von Braun's work on this subject continued into the 2010s, as she contributed to a 2016 paper analyzing techniques to address the childhood lead poisoning epidemic in Zamfara, Nigeria, due to gold mining in the region. From 2010 through 2013, mining caused rampant contamination, resulting in the deaths of more than 400 children. Remediation was conducted by modifying U.S. hazardous waste removal protocols to correspond with local agricultural practices. Through these efforts, more than 27,000 cubic meters of mining waste and contamination were removed from villages and ore processing areas, and the epidemic was brought under reasonable control. Corporate career In 1984, von Braun and her husband, Ian von Lindern, founded TerraGraphics Environmental Engineering Inc. This firm provided geological and environmental services with a specific focus on waste hazard remediation. In 2012, von Braun and von Lindern founded Terragraphics International Foundation (TIFO) as a non-profit successor to the original company. Administrative career In 1980, von Braun joined the faculty of the University of Idaho, becoming one of the first women to join their engineering department. In 1993, at the University of Idaho, von Braun founded and directed the Department of Environmental Sciences and Environmental Engineering. , Margrit von Braun is a professor emerita at the University of Idaho. Asia In Karakalpakstan, Uzbekistan, TIFO has partnered with Doctors Without Borders to address the drying up of the Aral Sea rivers. TIFO and Doctors Without Borders have used environmental models to assess the best intervention and treatment plans for the region. Since 2012, TIFO has taught a yearly course at the American University of Armenia for Master of Public Health (MPH) students. Since 2014, TIFO has monitored tannins and other pollutants in Hazaribagh, Bangladesh, and Kamrangirchar, Bangladesh == Recognition ==

At the University of Idaho, von Braun was the recipient of the Outstanding Faculty Award and the Graduate Teaching Excellence Award. In 2012, von Braun was inducted as a Fellow of the Collegium Ramazzini, an academy dedicated to environmental health. == References ==