Douglas J. Leaffer, Ph.D., P.E., P.G., F.ASCE, an engineering professor whose career in consulting and education since the mid-1980s spans geological, civil, and environmental engineering, has been named a fellow by the ASCE Board of Direction.
Leaffer, following graduation from the University of Miami, Florida, where he studied with renown paleoclimatology pioneer Cesare Emiliani and worked in his lab, began his career as a field engineer with CDMSmith in Boston, conducting groundwater supply, contamination, and wastewater treatment design studies.
As a project manager with EG&G GEOS in the early 1990s, he geophysically surveyed the structural integrity of the Third Harbor Tunnel support bedding for Boston's $8 billion "Big Dig" project. Later as a sales engineer for Thermo Fisher Environmental Instruments Division, he worked globally in 50 countries on five continents specifying and designing air pollution instrumentation systems for clients including Saudi Aramco, Bariven, and Pequiven oil refineries in Venezuela.
Leaffer was featured in the November 2020 issue of ASCE's Civil Engineering Source for innovative hybrid engineering course delivery during the pandemic.
Following a rewarding semester teaching as a guest adjunct instructor at Merrimack College in Massachusetts, he shifted his career toward engineering education, earning his doctoral degree in 2024 at Tufts University (Boston) in civil and environmental engineering, where he had previously completed a master's degree in that discipline. His doctoral research on the joint exposure effects of transportation-related noise and air pollution led to publication of several widely cited papers, among them "Wearable Ultrafine Particle and Noise Monitoring Sensors Jointly Measure Personal Co-exposures in a Pediatric Population" and "Long-Term Measurement Study of Urban Environmental Low Frequency Noise."
Leaffer has been active in ASCE since 2011 when he was an invited speaker and panelist at the ASCE Annual Conference in Memphis, Tennessee, co-presenting with Norma Jean Mattei, Pres.17.ASCE, on "Sustainable Engineering After [Hurricane] Katrina." He is additionally a member of ASCE’s Environmental and Water Resources Institute (EWRI) Environmental Health & Water Quality Committee.
Leaffer is licensed as a professional engineer in Maine, holds professional geologist licenses in Alaska and Wyoming, and is a WELL AP Accredited Professional and WELL Faculty of the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI), an Advisory for the WELL Sound Concept, and a LEED® Green Associate™ with US Green Building Council (USGBC).
Recognized by his peers in academia and government for engineering leadership, he is a member of the MIT Learning Engineering and Practice Group (LEAP) Community College TechAMP Advisory Council and received a Citation from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts State Senate for "Excellence in Environmental Affairs." He was the recipient of several other awards, including a National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development (NISOD) Community College Award and a Golden Lamp award, given by the Northern Essex Community College (Massachusetts) Student Government Association, both for Faculty Excellence, and received an Earle F. Littleton Award from Tufts University’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
