She holds a B.S. from Columbia and a Ph.D. from Colorado School of Mines, both in Chemical Engineering. Prior to graduate school she worked as a field engineer in the petroleum industry and the municipal water treatment industry in New Mexico and Colorado. She completed her dissertation with Professor John Dorgan on renewable polymer nanocomposites. She received a postdoctoral fellowship from the National Research Council to study polymeric materials for photovoltaic applications at NIST. She joined UMass Lowell in 2011 and received an NSF CAREER award in 2014. Dr. Sobkowicz’s research is focused on the convergence of energy, sustainability and materials.