Dr. Karen Pinkston has a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, a M.S. in Environmental Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. Her doctoral research focused on the fate of pharmaceuticals in water treatment systems. She currently works at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission as a Risk Analyst in the area of decommissioning and low level radioactive waste disposal. She has a Professional Engineer license from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.