Dr. Ketra Schmitt joined the Centre for Engineering in Society as an Assistant Professor in 2008 and was awarded tenure in 2014. Prior to being promoted to associate professor, she was appointed the INDI director in 2013. Prior to coming to Concordia, Dr. Schmitt worked as a Research Scientist at Battelle Memorial Institute, where she modeled the economic impacts of bioterrorism, life cycle costs of hearing loss and health impacts of seafood consumption.Dr. Schmitt was awarded the Ph.D. degree in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University in 2006 and a Master's in Statistics from Carnegie Mellon University in 2005. Dr. Schmitt has worked as a statistician forecasting natural gas demand for Peoples Energy and as a health inspector for the City of Evanston. Dr. Schmitt earned her Bachelor's degree in Environmental Sciences and Policy at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University in 1996.
My background is obviously interdisciplinary, so it was a natural fit that I become director of an interdisciplinary program like INDI.
My own journey in interdisciplinary research has taken me through applications related to systems engineering, public policy, human health, sustainability and economics.
At the core, I am fascinated by problems at the intersection of policy and technology, particularly those that influence human health.
My abiding interest is in the dynamic systems that influence risk and our policy initiatives to manage that risk. Using tools from systems analysis and cost-benefit analysis,
I've worked on a variety of applications that related health, engineering and policy. I hope you find something of interest here, and I would welcome the chance to discuss my work with you.