Berrin Tansel: 2025 Distinguished Achievement Award recipient

MSCEE ’79, PhDCEE ’89 (BSChE ‘78, Middle East Technical University)
Distinguished University Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Florida
International University

An environmental engineer and educator whose work in water conservation, recycling, contamination and infrastructure has influenced areas ranging from national policy to clean water on Earth and in space.

One day in 2004, Berrin Tansel got a call that launched her environmental engineering career in a vastly new direction. It was an invitation to collaborate with NASA through a fellowship at its Life Sciences Laboratory. “They were developing technology for long space missions and asked if I would be interested in coming there for the summer,” Tansel says. “So of course I said sure!”

For the next two summers, Tansel led a project to design a closed loop water recovery system for use aboard spacecraft. “It was a big break, because they’d say if you look at this space shuttle, half of its weight is from carrying water,” she says. “And that’s expensive; at the time, it was something like $10,000 per gallon of water. So it was crucial to make these systems efficient, because that could enable them to carry less water and use it more effectively, which might affect mission cost and how long these astronauts could stay in space.”

Tansel, whose career spans more than 30 years as a practicing engineer and an engineering professor, has a raft of other accomplishments, from major projects in the Northeast to national policy contributions.

For example, she was among contributors to the massive Oil in the Sea IV: Inputs, Fates and Effects report, which was published in 2023. The reports are commissioned and published by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine every 20 years. In the report, she wrote about what happens once oil (for example, from a spill) gets into seawater, how it might spread, and how long it may remain in the water.

Tansel says her time as a UW-Madison engineering student was instrumental in learning to adapt to rapid change and new challenges.

“My education in Wisconsin prepared me to be flexible, and to be able to learn very quickly in topics that I might not at first be very familiar with,” she says.

What do you enjoy about your career?

I don’t get bored. I’m constantly learning and there are always new opportunities to solve complex environmental challenges that have a real-world impact. I also enjoy mentoring students and having the opportunity to change their lives like the wonderful professors at Wisconsin did for me. They have so many expectations, but I always tell them they’re the ones in the driver’s seat and I’m there to help. It’s rewarding to see them flourish.

Which engineering professor made the greatest impact on you?

I had the privilege of working closely with Professor (now Emeritus) Paul Mac Berthouex. He was my advisor and has profoundly shaped my perspective on environmental education. While I was working with him, he connected me with the college’s professional and continuing education division, which was at the time pioneering distance learning through postal mail. That was a tremendous opportunity for me to learn about engineering education and outreach. Professor Berthouex was a great mentor to me, not only in the scientific sense, but on a personal level. I have continued to turn to him for guidance through my career, always knowing that his advice will be thoughtful, honest and grounded in deep experience.

Which do you prefer?

Winter or summer in Madison?
My favorite is actually spring, but I’d have to pick summer because the winters in Madison are so harsh!

Bascom Hill or Observatory Hill?
Bascom Hill.

State Street or Lakeshore path?
Though I do enjoy the craziness of State Street, I have to say the Lakeshore path because I biked a lot.