Alan Eschenroeder

Dr. Alan Eschenroeder, 81, of Concord, MA, and formerly Lincoln, MA, passed away peacefully, March 15, 2014, surrounded by his loving family. As a member of the faculty at the Harvard School of Public Health his teaching centered on pollutant behavior in the atmospheric environment with special emphasis on connections between air, water, soil and food sources. Dr. Eschenroeder developed and applied computer-based models of health risks as they are influenced by physical and chemical processes in the environment. His recent projects include a comparative risk analysis of waste management, an exposure assessment for contaminants emitted during military actions in the Middle East conflicts, a model for exposure of railroad workers to diesel pollutants, an assessment of health risks of the petroleum coke industry and an evaluation of a complex computer simulation of national scale health impacts under development by the government. Shortly after his appointment in 1996, he was assigned to an international development project in Slovakia where he analyzed the policy implications of proposed air pollution control legislation and taught a health risk analysis course in the graduate school of medicine. He organized an air pollution task force made up of middle management personnel from the Ministries of Health and Environment. Other foreign assignments included visiting academic appointments in Switzerland, Greece and China. Dr. Eschenroeders work in the environmental sciences began in 1967 with development of computer models describing the evolution of photochemical smog in the Los Angeles Basin. These techniques combined meteorology with chemical kinetics borrowing heavily from his earlier contributions in fluid dynamic research. He offered planners a way of predicting the effects of pollutant emission controls on reducing human exposure. This pioneering effort was initially met with skepticism among environmental officials, but after the first Earth Day in 1970, interest grew in supporting the development of reliable air quality planning tools. In response to the new needs, Dr. Eschenroeder built an organization in Santa Barbara, California devoted to the analysis of environmental problems. He participated in the design, management and analysis of coordinated airborne and ground-based field programs that validated the computer models. While his main emphasis was air quality issues, he worked with biologists to develop a food chain vulnerability theory for the responses of an ecosystem to chemical threats. The National Science Foundation supported this work, which included publications and workshops. The National Academy of Sciences appointed him successively to four committee assignments in the field of air quality. Scopes of these committees included tropospheric ozone, diesel vehicles, environmental measurements, and transportation systems. His scholastic honors include Tau Beta Pi, Pi Tau Sigma, Phi Kappa Phi, Sigma Xi and the Sibley Prize. Whos Who in America and Whos Who in the World have published his biographical data in several successive editions. In this same time-frame he served on the Santa Barbara City Council during the recovery period following a massive crude oil spill in waters offshore from Santa Barbara. In response to this crisis he formed a city environmental quality advisory board providing technical backup for subsequent successful litigation against the responsible parties. In his capacity as an elected official, Dr. Eschenroeder worked with Federal authorities to initiate legislation in the US Congress designed to minimize damage from future oil spills in offshore waters. In this effort he was called as a witness in several hearings and was invited to work with legislative staff in drafting bills. Completing his term on the council, he was appointed to serve on the Board of Water Commissioners. After becoming chairman of the board, he spearheaded the engineering and financing of an upgraded wastewater treatment facility that provides a water recycling component. His management responsibilities extended to a regional board, which interfaced with the US Bureau of Reclamation in the operation and maintenance of dams and reservoirs. Concurrent with these responsibilities, Dr. Eschenroeder was appointed by the Santa Barbara Air Pollution Control District to chair a rules committee. After adoption of the rules, he served as co-chair of the Air Quality Hearing Board. He received both his BME and PhD degrees in engineering at Cornell University concentrating on experimental investigations of combustion in flow systems. While serving in the army between undergraduate and graduate studies, his projects developed data on the performance of light gas guns superheated by chemical reactions. His research used of some of the earliest digital computers (now on display at the Smithsonian Institution History and Technology Museum). His postdoctoral work at the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory produced methodologies for the dynamics of chemically reacting high speed flows. Dr. Eschenroeder devoted the next several years to building a research group in Santa Barbara, California. The mission of his group was to provide the linkage between laboratory simulations of spacecraft reentry into the earths atmosphere and down range full scale flight tests on the Pacific Missile Range. His fundamental research extended the statistical theory of turbulence enhancement in reactive flows. His collaboration with microwave scientists clarified the understanding of apparent anomalies observed in field tests. In his mid-life career change he exploited the continuity between the defense work and the environmental research that followed. The theoretical approaches, the mathematical methods and their computer implementation carried over into his early developments of photochemical smog simulations. His early years were spent on a small farm outside of St.Louis, Missouri. An early exposure to railroading spurred his technical interests. Family members took him on engine house tours, and neighbors taught him to set up routes by aligning switches and signals in signal towers. In later life this became an active avocation as he fired and ran steam locomotives. He completed a hands-on course in England on the art and science of engine driving, which resulted in a certificate of proficiency. He is survived by his loving wife, Laura; a daughter Lise in Santa Barbara; a daughter Laurel McGinley and her husband Stafford, VA; a stepson, James Riker and his wife Rosalyn in Tacoma Park, MD; and a stepson, Van Riker and his wife Jenn in Seattle, WA. Also survived by five grandsons, Robert, Daniel, William, Sean and Reed. He was also the father of the late Stephen Christian Eschenroeder. Family and friends will gather to honor and remember Dr. Eschenroeders life on Thursday, March 20th at 2:00 pm in Duvall Chapel at New England Deaconess Assoc., 80 Deaconess Rd., Concord. Gifts in his name may be made to the Alan Quade Eschenroeder Memorial Fund, c/o Concord Funeral Home, 74 Belknap St., Concord, MA 01742. To share a memory or condolence visit: www.concord funeralhome.com.