Michael Kavanaugh

Michael Kavanaugh

Dr. Kavanaugh is a Senior Principal with Geosyntec Consultants, Inc., a 1200 person professional services firm specializing in environmental science, and environmental and geotechnical engineering. He is a chemical and environmental engineer with over 40 years of consulting experience. His areas of expertise include hazardous waste management, site remediation with particular focus on groundwater remediation, industrial waste treatment, risk and decision analysis, fate and transport of contaminants in the environment, water quality management, water and wastewater treatment, potable and non-potable water reuse, and strategic environmental management.

Dr. Kavanaugh has been project engineer, project manager, principal-in-charge, technical director or technical reviewer on over 200 projects conducted in the U.S. and internationally covering a broad range of environmental problems.He has authored or co-authored more than 40 peer reviewed technical papers, edited and contributed to six books on water quality, water treatment, groundwater remediation, and aquifer restoration. He has also made over 170 presentationsto technical audiences as well as public groups including testimony before congressional and state legislative committees.

Dr. Kavanaugh also has extensive litigation experience, both as a testifying expert (seven trial testimonies, 35 deposition testimonies) and as a consulting expert on engineering and hydrogeologic issues related to hazardous waste site remediation as well as on other issues related to his areas of expertise. He also has participated on more than ten mediation and arbitration panels as a neutral technical expert as well as being a sole facilitator/mediator/arbitrator and a court appointed neutral expert. He has served on over 25 peer review panels throughout his career. In addition to his consulting practice, Dr. Kavanaugh has completed several invited assignments with the USEPA and the National Research Council (NRC), the operating arm of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine. In 2003, Dr. Kavanaugh co-chaired an EPA sponsored committee addressing the issue of groundwater restoration in the presence of organic liquid contaminants. Between 1988 and 1991, Dr. Kavanaugh chaired the Water Science and Technology Board of the NRC. From 1996 to 2000, he chaired the Board on Radioactive Waste Management.

Dr. Kavanaugh has also chaired two NRC committees addressing the challenges of groundwater restoration, with the most recent report, “Alternatives for Managing the Nation’s Complex Contaminated Groundwater Sites”, released in 2013 focused on strategies to address the most difficult contaminated sites. For his contributions to water quality and hazardous waste management, Dr. Kavanaugh was elected into the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) in 1998. Dr. Kavanaugh currently (2009 – 2015) serves on the Board of Directors of the Environmental Law Institute (ELI), providing a science and engineering perspective to this non-profit organization which promotes the role of legal strategies to achieve balance between economic growth and environmental stewardship. In 2013, Dr. Kavanaugh was elected as a fellow of the Water Environment Federation.Dr. Kavanaugh is a registered chemical engineer in California, and a Board Certified Environmental Engineer (BCEE) by the American Academy of Environmental Engineers. He is certified in three specialty areas, site remediation and hazardous waste management, water and wastewater treatment and sustainability. He is also a consulting professor of Environmental Engineering in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University. He has a Ph.D. in civil/environmental engineering from the University of California at Berkeley, and B.S. and M.S. degrees in chemical engineering from Stanford and UC Berkeley, respectively.