Betsy Dulin joined the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) as a master’s student in the environmental engineering program in the mid-1980s after she graduated first in her civil engineering class from West Virginia Tech. She completed her full research thesis and defended in just over three semesters with a 4.0. The American Water Works Association Journal published her work, a notable accomplishment at the time.
Ms. Dulin has had a very interesting and broad professional career. She worked as an environmental engineer with several national consulting firms for several years, designing water and wastewater treatment facilities. She often worked with lawyers and other professionals in the development of projects, and her increasing interest in their work resulted in her decision to go to law school. She ultimately decided on Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., where she completed her degree program and graduated first in her class of 130 graduates in 1992.
Ms. Dulin worked for three years in law practice (for a large corporate firm on numerous projects that were closely related to the civil engineering and construction realms) before entering another “phase change” in her career and moving into higher education, where she initially helped to develop the merger of the West Virginia Graduate College in Charleston, W.Va., with Mar-shall University in the mid 1990s. In addition to teaching courses in graduate engineering and environmental programs and advising students, she helped to develop new degree programs and served as the founding manager of the Environmental Management Incubator program, initially funded at $1.2 million by the Economic Development Administration and which helped small businesses deal with environmental regulatory and compliance issues.
Ms. Dulin then taught for a year in the Department of Civil Engineering at West Virginia Tech before accepting the position as associate dean and engineering division chair in the College of Information Technology and Engineering at Marshall University. Four years later she became the dean of the College and led programs related to eight graduate and undergraduate degree programs. Over this four-year period she was responsible for overseeing all aspects of the college on both the Huntington and South Charleston campuses and was responsible for the development of several new undergraduate programs. Following this time of service, she decided to return to her law practice and accepted a position as partner in the Environmental/Energy and Intellectual Property Practice Groups with Bowles Rice McDavid Graff and Love in Charleston, W.Va.
Ms. Dulin has served and continues to serve in a wide range of professional and civil service roles. One of her recent and most prestigious was serving as chair of the West Virginia Consortium on Undergraduate Research and Engineering. This was a state-wide consortium of representatives from higher education and industry who were tasked by the governor of West Virginia to develop a full report with recommendations that could be followed to improve engineering programs and develop policy recommendations to enhance science, technology, engineering, and math education in West Virginia. She has likewise served on several major state-wide boards in West Virginia, and has helped to write state water quality standards and regulations among her other activities. She is a registered engineer in the state of West Virginia and is licensed to practice law in West Virginia and Ohio, and is a registered patent attorney with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Ms. Dulin serves on the board of directors for the Marshall University Research Corporation; the West Virginia American Water Company; the National Institute for Chemical Studies; the Chemical Alliance Zone; and the Mid-Atlantic Technology, Research and Innovation Center. In 2003, she was selected as one of 20 “Young Guns” in the state by West Virginia Executive Magazine. In addition, she serves on the National Advisory Committee on Exploring Engineering and Technology.
She has published in various professional publications as well as presenting her work at national ASEE meetings.
Ms. Dulin worked to increase annual fund giving by several orders of magnitude while serving as dean of Marshall’s College of Information Technology and Engineering, securing many major gifts including a $2.5 million naming gift for Division of Engineering and Computer Science and a $1 million scholarship fund.
She has secured yearly funding from state and federal agencies for the following projects: “Exploring Engineering: Academy of Excellence,” a residential camp at Marshall University for high school students, summers 2001-06; off-campus high school outreach activities; research for various state agencies, including U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, and West Virginia Department of Highways, regarding engineering ethics, environmental policy, and environmental engineering and science issues.
Ms. Dulin has once again returned to higher education, resuming her duties as a faculty member in the College of Information Technology and Engineering at Marshall University, and also supporting and advising the president and the Marshall University Research Corporation on a variety of intellectual property protection, technology transfer, compliance, and legislative issues. She lives in Charleston, W.Va, with her husband John (also a Virginia Tech graduate with a MSE degree in 1986), and their sons Jack and Sam.