Explore
Office of Advancement
About the Office of Advancement
Contact Us
Alumni
Alumni Relations
Alumni Stories
Alumni Board
The Owl & Spade alumni magazine
Homecoming Reunion Weekend
Weekend @ WWC Summer Event
Friends
Church and Interfaith Relations
Family Weekend
Special Events
Fast Facts about the College
Giving
Make a Gift Online
Annual Giving : The WWC Fund
The Warren Wilson College Circle
Gift Planning
Endowment Scholarships
About Our Alumni
Warren Wilson College has a rich history of alumni, dating back to the Farm School days of the ’30s. Through the Owl and Spade and continuing contact with our alums, we've collected a few examples of what our alumni are doing. Please help us to increase our knowledge of what you've done since you left Warren Wilson College. Submit a note for the Owl and Spade or write us (alumni@warren-wilson.edu or by mail) and share your story. It is so helpful to our students to know the directions graduates have taken, and to let your classmates know as well! You may have a colleague out there you didn't know about. Visit the Alumni Outcomes page to find out more. We welcome your stories, so the world can know just how great our alums are doing.
Alumni Profiles
Rula Deeb ’91
Excerpt from Owl & Spade
By Jack Ingelman
WALNUT CREEK, CA -- Resident Dr. Rula Deeb ’91 is passionate about her work as an environmental engineer developing new techniques and approaches to dealing with contaminates in water. Yet what appeals to her most about her occupation are not the microorganisms at the core of her research. “I love what I do. It’s very important to me and I’m very devoted to it. But what makes it so enjoyable is that I interact with people in every aspect of my work,” says Deeb, who graduated from Warren Wilson College in 1991 with a degree in math and chemistry. “I’ve really found a good balance in my work.”
At seventeen she left her native Lebanon to attend Warren Wilson because of the nation’s civil war. Once at school Deeb threw herself into her studies and a slew of extracurricular activities to distract herself from the harsh reality at home. “I might have locked my door and studied at any another school,” says Deeb, whose brother and sister also attended the College. “But [Warren Wilson] was such a friendly and welcoming place that it took my mind off the trouble in Lebanon.”
After graduating from Warren Wilson with the highest student award, the Pfaff Cup, Deeb was chosen for a position at the United Nations organizing conferences and seminars on peace and the environmental issues. At the time, the UN was preparing to host the Earth Summit in Brazil. That movement inspired her to connect her future studies with real environmental problems. “I wanted to do some kind of engineering that would benefit the environment,” recalls Deeb.
Today, she is doing just that—taking obscure scientific research and applying it to tangible environmental problems. After finishing a master’s degree and a doctorate in civil and environmental engineering at the University of California-Berkeley, Deeb taught for a semester at Stanford University. Then, she joined Malcolm Pirnie Inc., an environmental engineering consulting firm, working with public utilities, industry and government agencies to develop solutions for water contamination issues. Her work has ranged from studying the impact of highway construction on municipal water supplies to investigating strategies to recycle wastewater for indirect potable uses. She is best known for her work in bioremediation—the process of using microorganisms to destroy harmful water contaminants.
For innovation and leadership in her field, she was presented the 2007 Berkeley Engineering Alumni—Outstanding Young Leader Award.
Although her job involves plenty of research and complex projects to apply her know-how, she is also committed to mentoring younger engineers and inspiring future ones. While technical expertise is necessary, she hopes that students today will value an open-minded and broad education—like the one she received at Warren Wilson. “Academics will only get you so far,” Deeb says. “Nothing prepares you for the world like an education for the whole person. That is the most important piece of my entire education.”