The Department of Geology and Environmental Science Senior Distinguished Alumni Award was established to recognize and honor the outstanding achievements of our younger alumni. The award highlights the diversity and quality of the contributions our younger alumni have made to the enrichment of our profession. The department is especially pleased to award Ms. Carole A. Lojek the 2024 Department of Geology and Environmental Science Senior Distinguished Alumni Award.
Carole A. Lojek graduated from Bethel Park Senior High School in Pittsburgh in 1977. She was a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh with a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology in 1981. She completed a Master of Science degree in Geology at Oklahoma State University in 1983, and an Executive Master of Business Management at the University of New Mexico in 1999. Her first job as a geologist was in the oil industry working for L.R. Resources II in Shreveport. After two years of evaluating acreage for oil and gas potential using well logs, geologic maps, and cross-sections. She next landed in Cincinnati as a geologist with Westinghouse, and later as a hydrogeologist and project manager with the IT Corporation in Cincinnati, Los Alamos, and Albuquerque, concentrating on environmental monitoring and restoration. After working as a contractor at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico she converted to a Lab employee and soon after became a manager for the Environmental Restoration Project. Sandia allowed her to develop roots in a national lab environment, where she flourished for 21 years, pursuing a variety of career opportunities. She ran teams dealing with environmental waste handling issues at the Nevada Test Site; managed projects to increase regional and international security in Kazakhstan by developing cooperative environmental monitoring measures; provided technical support for corporate strategic planning and congressional relations activities; prepared speeches and presentations for Sandia’s top executives; and worked on licensing intellectual property and commercializing technologies such as Sandia’s decontamination formulation used to successfully decontaminate anthrax in U.S. Congressional office buildings in Washington, D.C in 2001. She later became a Nuclear Weapons Program Intern and Systems Engineer, working on several weapons life extension programs, and finally as a Quality Engineer on a variety of weapon systems