Bio

Dr. Jacqueline MacDonald Gibson is a nationally recognized leader in engineering and public policy, serving as the Twisdale Family Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering Department Head at North Carolina State University. Under her leadership, the department has become a hub for innovation, interdisciplinary research, and impactful solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges.

Dr. Gibson’s career spans both academia and high-level public policy, uniquely positioning her to address the intersection of science, engineering, and governance. Before entering academia, she spent 13 years in influential policy roles, including serving as Associate Director of the U.S. National Research Council’s Water Science and Technology Board and acting as a key liaison to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy during her tenure with The RAND Corporation. Her interdisciplinary research addresses critical global challenges, ranging from optimizing water infrastructure to enhance public health in the United States to developing strategic frameworks for prioritizing environmental policy initiatives in the United Arab Emirates.

Currently, Dr. Gibson is the President of the Society for Risk Analysis and serves as an Associate Editor for Environmental Science & Technology, one of the premier journals in environmental engineering and science. She holds dual PhDs in Engineering and Public Policy and in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, an MS in Environmental Science in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a BA in Mathematics from Bryn Mawr College. Dr. Gibson’s work continues to influence transformative policy decisions and pave the way for sustainable solutions to critical environmental challenges.

Area(s) of Expertise

Research Interests: Interdisciplinary research on the quantification of risks due to environmental contamination and on the quantitative comparison policy options for controlling environmental risks

Publications

• Closing Water Security Gaps in the United States: The Role of Environmental Engineers and Scientists , Environmental Science & Technology (2026)
• Housing age and sociodemographic characteristics as predictors of residential lead exposure and modeled child blood lead levels , The Science of The Total Environment (2026)
• Predicting PFAS Exposure Risks from Rural Private Wells Using Integrated Mechanistic and Machine-Learned Bayesian Network Models , Environmental Science & Technology (2026)
• The Exposome at a Crossroads: From Measurement to Action , Environmental Science & Technology (2026)
• The Human Exposome: Integrating the Environment, Human Health, and Society for the Next 60 years , Environmental Science & Technology (2026)
• Transdisciplinary Approach to Private Well Research , Environmental Science & Technology (2026)
• Evaluating the effectiveness of point-of-use UVC LED disinfection of activated carbon block filter effluent among private well users , PLOS Water (2025)
• PFAS in Rural U.S. Well Water: Using Participatory Science to Identify and Communicate Results to Address Risks , Environmental Science & Technology (2025)
• Risk, Justice, and Democracy: Rethinking How Hazards Are Distributed , Risk Analysis (2025)
• Water security in North Carolina’s most economically insecure county: a case study , Environmental Research Letters (2025)

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