Esther Parish: The science of sustainability

Esther Parish’s holistic approach to life is apparent not only in her environmental research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, but in her careful cultivation of a future crop of young scientists.

Her expertise as a geographer coupled with a keen interest in the natural world drives Parish’s research in bioenergy sustainability and energy-water systems. Her work focuses on providing decision-making tools that take a well-rounded approach to addressing issues such as land use, forest management, and the resilience of cities to changing environmental conditions.

Shortly after Parish began work at ORNL in 2007 as a post-master’s associate in the Computational Sciences and Engineering Division, she worked on a project that used high-performance computing to optimize placement of switchgrass in a Tennessee watershed. The aim was to simultaneously improve water quality measures, reduce sediment runoff, and maximize profits from bioenergy production.

“If you just try to maximize results for one indicator at a time, such as profit, then you don’t do so well on water quality,” Parish said. “If you do them all at once, then you get pretty good results on all.”

This balanced approach pervades Parish’s research at ORNL. She contributed to the development of a set of sustainability metrics for bioenergy production focused on social, economic, and environmental factors. She now leads the research team, which is testing those metrics in various settings across the country.

“There are going to be tradeoffs with any kind of energy production,” Parish said. “We can work toward multiple goals at the same time and better understand the opportunities and synergies for each region or situation.”

Her holistic style is also apparent in Parish’s contributions to the development of a scientifically-based visualization tool called the Urban Climate Adaption Tool, or Urban-CAT. Developed with input from the City of Knoxville, the tool integrates climate projections with socioeconomic and infrastructure data to assist planners in mid-sized cities with decisions on green projects and adaptation strategies for changing environmental conditions. 

Parish has always had an interest in clean water, she said. The first project she led at ORNL focused on clean water availability. Parish and collaborators developed a simple method to integrate diverse climate and population data sets to project per capita water availability around the globe.

More recently, Parish examined the interdependent relationship between water and energy systems—known as the water-energy nexus—while working on her doctoral degree in Energy Science and Engineering at the University of Tennessee’s Bredesen Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education.

Parish secured her doctorate with a thesis investigating the sustainability of wood pellets produced in the Southeastern United States for export. The topic grew from similar studies Parish contributed to at ORNL, which found that pellet production offers incentive for improved forest management along with multiple social, economic, and environmental benefits, ranging from new jobs to reduced risk of forest fires.

Energizing young scientists

Through her research, Parish has created an extensive network in the bioenergy community. She drew on those connections when she spearheaded a new local event in 2016 for students, teachers, and families to celebrate National Bioenergy Day. More than 200 attendees from 10 surrounding counties attended hands-on demonstrations and exhibits from regional stakeholders, including ORNL, the University of Tennessee, the US Forest Service, Genera Energy, and the Children’s Discovery Museum of Chattanooga.

 “It is exciting to see the community come together like that,” Parish said of the Bioenergy Day event. “I believe it is vitally important to engage students early, show them science is fun, and help them learn about potential career paths.”

Communication is a priority for Parish, who was recently honored as the Science Communicator of the Year at ORNL by UT-Battelle for “leading communication about renewable energy with creativity and enthusiasm.” She participates in a variety of educational activities, from developing and administering a hydrogeology exam for the regional Science Olympiad to talking with individual classes about what it’s like to be a scientist.

Parish shared her work in sustainability metrics with regional middle and high school teachers at the Bioenergy Workforce Development for Educators workshop organized by ORNL. As part of the workshop, Parish collaborated with master teachers from Oak Ridge Associated Universities to create curricula for ninth grade algebra classes based on timberland data sets. The participants were able to use these and other bioenergy lesson plans in their classrooms this year.

When she participates as a judge at science fairs, Parish feels like she is coming full circle. It was through her seventh and eighth grade science fairs that Parish discovered her love of earth science, with projects examining the effects of water pollution on cloud formation. A year-long science class at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History at the end of high school provided her first introduction to geology, which she later studied in college.

An interdisciplinary approach

Parish considered majoring in physics when pursuing her bachelor’s degree at Yale. She chose geology and geophysics instead, because the coursework included studies of biology, chemistry, and physics as well as time spent outdoors. “I’m a big advocate of the liberal arts,” said Parish. “That broad foundation has been essential to understanding and writing about the interdisciplinary issues I study.”

Parish also secured a master’s degree in geography at the University of Tennessee and received honors for her research, which earned a “My Community, Our Earth” award from the United Nations Environment Programme, the National Geographic Society, the Environmental Systems Research Institute, and the Association of American Geographers.

Prior to joining ORNL, Parish worked as a geographer with the Tennessee Valley Authority and as an environmental consultant for the Department of Energy, the US Army Corps of Engineers, and the US Environmental Protection Agency. She met her husband through her consulting work, and they have two children whom Parish loves to take traveling. The family explored Iceland and Quebec last year.

“I enjoy working at ORNL,” Parish said. “With the computing resources and the many specialties at the lab, there is a lot of opportunity to work toward solving big problems.” 

ORNL is managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy's Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. DOE’s Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit http://energy.gov/science.