Nicole Blute

PhD, PE

Growing up, Nicole Blute fell in love with science through school science fairs. “I loved tinkering and trying to understand the world around me,” she explains. A child of a music teacher and a school registrar, she was always encouraged to study and learn, but she is still surprised that both she and her sister, a cancer researcher, came from a household without scientists or engineers.

As an undergraduate student at the University of Rochester, Nicole double majored in Chemistry and Environmental Science. It was there that Nicole came to consider herself a scientist, and she also met a cinematography student who would later become her husband.

While enrolled in M.I.T.’s PhD program, her research into industrial contaminants in the rivers and wetlands of Woburn, Massachusetts helped prevent migration into a local community; exactly the sort of impact Nicole hoped to have. The method she created to test the wetlands’ stabilization of the contaminants was then applied to solve a problem with groundwater wells in Bangladesh.

Her husband went there with her, filming a project while Nicole worked on a team to find the source of the arsenic in groundwater, finding that the rice-paddy flooding of fields pulled sewage into the aquifer and provided the organic matter microorganisms needed to create reducing conditions, dissolve iron hydroxides, and release arsenic.

At Hazen, Nicole is now Director of Drinking Water Process Technologies, an opportunity she intends to use to connect more people and diversify teams further for the good of the firm and her clients. Nicole continues to help clients find solutions for emerging contaminants and is helping to position Hazen to stay ahead of future challenges. She lives in Southern California with her husband, son, and daughter.