Introducing Aprovecho’s New Executive Director, Dr. Nordica MacCarty 

Aprovecho Research Center is pleased to announce that Dr. Nordica MacCarty has accepted the role of Executive Director. Dr. MacCarty takes over the position from Dean Still, who continues on as Research Director. Dr. MacCarty is also an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Oregon State University where she will continue teaching and directing the Humanitarian Engineering program as the Richard and Gretchen Evans Scholar of Humanitarian Engineering.

Nordica first came to Aprovecho in the summer of 2000, just after completing her BS in Mechanical Engineering at Iowa State University. She spent the summer testing and experimenting with Rocket Stoves, and attended the very first ETHOS Conference, which was held at the Aprovecho campus. “That summer changed my life and career goals” she said, “and my dream now is to help Aprovecho continue to bring accessible designs to improve lives well into the future.”

Prior to joining the OSU faculty in 2015, she spent nearly 10 years working for Aprovecho as an international consultant building capacity at projects and universities abroad for the design and testing of renewable household energy systems, and was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. Dr. MacCarty holds an MS and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Iowa State. She serves as Associate Editor for the journal Energy for Sustainable Development and was recently recognized with the Elevating Impact Award for social entrepreneurship from the Lemelson Foundation and OSU’s 2020 International Service Award. She is also the lead PI on the $2.5 million US DOE grant recently awarded to the OSU and Aprovecho team to design cleaner cordwood heating stoves for US and international markets. (https://today.oregonstate.edu/news/oregon-state-receives-25-million-grant-create-wood-stoves-burn-more-cleanly )

The Aprovecho team feels that Dr. MacCarty is a valuable addition, due to her interests in understanding the relationships between energy, society and the environment, and engineering design applied to global humanitarian needs. “Nordica is my perfect replacement because she combines expertise from the field, the lab and academia” said Dean Still. “I couldn’t think about leaving without competent replacement, and I have zero doubts that she will do better than I did.”