Linda Abriola, Dean of the School of Engineering at Tufts University, was named the 2013 Engineering Leader of the Year by Drexel’s College of Engineering, her undergraduate alma mater. The award was given in recognition of her leadership efforts in environmental engineering and her contributions to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Abriola, the only female in Drexel’s 1976 graduating class of civil and environmental engineers and the first woman elected to the NAE’s civil engineering section, is the first female engineer to receive this award.

Abriola, who has a Ph.D. in civil engineering from Princeton, became dean of Tufts’ engineering school in 2003 and continues to teach in the departments of civil and environmental engineering and chemical and biological engineering. Her research focuses on water contamination.

As a result of her expertise, Abriola has served on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Science Advisory Board, the National Research Council Water Science and Technology Board, and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Natural and Accelerated Bioremediation Research Advisory Committee. Abriola received the U.S. Department of Defense’s Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program Project of the Year Award in Environmental Restoration in 2006 and 2012.