Plata Lab Statement on Inclusivity:

We renounce racism and discrimination in all forms. Desiree values individuals’ contributions to our community, as well as our science and engineering. In the Plata Lab, all individuals are expected to treat others with respect and courtesy, irrespective of such factors as race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, disability, age, or national origin. Desiree seeks to cultivate an overall climate in which every person feels welcome, respected, and are able to develop to his/her/their full potential, thereby creating a community that can do the same.

Desirée Plata

Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Bio

Desirée Plata’s research seeks to maximize technology’s benefit to society while minimizing environmental impacts in industrially important practices through the use of geochemical tools and chemical mechanistic insights. Plata earned her doctoral degree in Chemical Oceanography and Environmental Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Joint Program in Oceanography (2009), her bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Union College in Schenectady, NY (2003), and proudly attended Gould Academy (1999). Plata is an NSF CAREER Awardee (2016), an Odebrecht-Braskem Sustainable Innovation Awardee (2015), a two-time National Academy of Engineers Frontiers of Engineering Fellow (2012, 2020), a two-time National Academy of Sciences Kavli Frontiers of Science Fellow (2011, 2013), a Caltech Resnick Sustainability Fellow (2017), and winner of MIT’s Junior Bose Teaching Award (2019), Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award (2021), and Perkins Graduate Advising Award (2021). Having previously served as Assistant Professor at Duke University, John J. Lee Assistant Professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at Yale University and Associate Director for Research at the Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering at Yale, Plata is now Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT, co-director of the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium, and Faculty Lead of Belonging, Achievement, and Composition in the MIT School of Engineering. Plata directs MIT’s Methane Network, serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of Spark Climate, served on the National Academy of Science Engineering and Medicine’s Atmospheric Methane Removal study (recused), and is former Associate Editor at Environmental Science: Processes and Impacts. Plata is co-founder of Nth Cycle (nthcycle.com), co-founder and President of Sustainable Chemical Resource Advisors, and co-founder and President of Moxair.

CV