Lisa Alvarez-Cohen is the Vice Provost for Academic Planning, Fred and Claire Sauer Professor, and past-Chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and of the Faculty Senate at UC Berkeley.  She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering and Applied Science from Harvard University and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering and Science from Stanford University. Her research areas include biotransformation and fate of environmental water contaminants, environmental microbiology and ecology, bioremediation, biological wastewater nutrient removal, and application of molecular and isotopic techniques for studying environmental microbial communities.  She has taught both undergraduate and graduate courses in environmental microbiology, environmental engineering, and biological process engineering, and has co-authored the textbook Environmental Engineering Science.  

She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors.  She has won a number of awards including the China 1,000 Talents National Award, the ASCE Simon W. Freese Environmental Engineering Award, the W. M. Keck Foundation Award for Engineering Teaching Excellence, and the National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award.