From chemistry to environmental engineering with Joel Citulski - Process Engineering Manager
Curiosity has led Dr. Joel Citulski to start his journey in chemistry as a way to understand the world around him at a more fundamental level. With his passion for sustainability and water stewardship, he continued to pursue and complete his Master's and Ph.D. in environmental engineering at the University of Guelph, where he met his husband. Fast forward to today, Joel has utilized his Ph.D.-level engineering expertise and 15+ years of experience in water/wastewater systems to advance his career as Industrial Process Engineering Manager at Suez Water Technologies and Solutions.
Excited, optimistic, and inspired is how I feel after connecting with Joel and listening to his fascinating yet authentic stories. Check out the full interview below to have a closer look at his career pathway, engineer's responsibilities, LGBTQ+ experiences, and so much more!
**This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
As a senior process engineer, you really follow a project for its entire life cycle. The first step is responding to RFPs (requests for proposals). Typically, the municipalities or consulting engineers will release a big document that outlines the system design's requirements. Then it comes to budgetary proposals, which you're working hand in hand along with salespeople and application engineers. As a process engineer, you're involved in helping to guide them on what are required pieces for the biological reactor. Then we have a separation step, which separates out the purified water from the previous process (typically using membranes). If you are lucky and successful, that will then lead to a final proposal, which is more detailed in scope. For me, that may quite frequently mean more detailed design calculations and software modeling. Although my role isn't a sales role, I have to be able to communicate the design in a way that makes sense to a technical audience and, occasionally, different municipal levels, different kinds of politicians involved or other folks who are part of that evaluation process.
Should you win that bid, then the rubber really hits the road, and now you move into the detailed design engineering where you're refining all your calculations. It's fun because you're not working in isolation; you're part of a really big team that includes mechanical, instrumentation, and control engineers. Once the system is commissioned and brought online, as a process engineer, you're also responsible for the performance test. And then you're in it for the long run too. You're there for troubleshooting, helping to train operators, speaking at conferences and providing best practices for other engineers or for the public at large.
It's a bit easier in municipal wastewater treatment because it tends to be a little bit more constant-ish. If you picture a normal human being in society, how does our life kind of roll out? It does have some variations but tends to be more predictable. However, the challenges are more emphasis on removing more and more things to a very low concentration. For example, one of the big contaminants of emerging concern is PFAS (polyfluorinated alcohol substances). A lot of the regulations are looking towards removal down to parts per trillion or nanograms per litre in treated wastewater. The challenge becomes picking needles out of a haystack for some of these compounds. On the one hand, you may have concentrations of some things like biological oxygen demand (BOD), nitrogen, and phosphorus, at hundreds or tens of milligrams per litre.
The other challenge is in public perception. Particularly, in Canada and a lot of countries, we take for granted that when you open the tap, clean water will come out; when you flush the toilet, it all goes away. Obviously, that is not the case everywhere. Even here in Canada, for many first nations communities, sadly, it's not the reality. But in general, if you're taking something for granted, you don't necessarily value it. When it comes time to upgrade or maintain infrastructure, some people will balk at the cost.
“The challenge of engineers or stem professionals is being able to communicate to the public, to make people aware of the importance of what we do, why we do what we do, why it is vital.”
Drinking water or wastewater treatment is not something that most people think about and tends to be overlooked. It's just sort of there in the background of our lives.
Obviously, you have to be comfortable with a certain level of mathematical skills. On a bigger level, you also have to be comfortable with uncertainty. Typically, when given effluent quality specifications, or what’s coming into a wastewater treatment plant, you may get average values. An average is an average; it doesn't tell you much about the minimum or maximum. But you have to be able to design not just for the average. What if there's a storm and the flow to the plant is doubled or tripled? You have to be able to balance good engineering practice with risk. You can't design a system that is so conservative that it will be huge, complicated, and costly that no one's gonna buy it. But on the other hand, you do have to factor in the "what ifs," and you have to be comfortable with using your judgment when you don't have perfect information. I know for me, it took a while to overcome that mindset. If you're in STEM, a lot of folks tend to be very analytical and precise. You wanna know exact values to three decimal points, and you often don't get that. When you're designing a system, you have to be comfortable with how you deal with uncertainty and how you build in safety factors for the scenarios in that you don't necessarily know the exact values.
There are people who know from early on in their lives what profession they want to be in, and I'm not one of those people. When I think back to high school, I really didn't know what I wanted to do. I came from a family where none of my immediate family had gone to university. I kind of fumbled a lot in my earlier years, figuring out what I wanted to be. I don't think this was ever really a very realistic career choice, but in my early teens, I wanted to be either a photographer or a reporter for National Geographic. I don't think I can say that if I didn't become an engineer, that's what I would've done as my plan B, but that's the closest thing to a dream profession when I was younger. I have been lucky and privileged to be able to travel to a bunch of places in the world, but when I was younger, that wasn't an option. My family got a subscription to National Geographic for me when I was 6. At that age, I could barely read or appreciate what was going on in the magazine, but the photos sparked this dream. I knew there was this bigger world around me that I really wanted to see. And I think that's why I wanted that job because of the ability to go to every corner of the world.
It’s tying into not necessarily knowing my clear career path or what my options were. And to be perfectly honest, when I was finishing high school, I didn't even know that environmental engineering existed. During high school, I had gotten quite an interest in chemistry as it was sort of the lens to understand how the world around us works at a fundamental level. And even back in those days, I was very interested in sustainability and environmental stewardship. Then after I finished my undergrad degree, I did struggle a bit to figure out how I want to apply my chemistry studies with a more practical and tangible impact.
Water has always fascinated me because it is fundamental to our lives. So when I realized there's environmental engineering, I thought this looked like the perfect way to apply chemistry knowledge to a more hands-on way of promoting sustainability through water resource management and protection. I went to grad school, swearing I was only going to do my master's, but I had a really good thesis supervisor, Dr. Khosrow Farahbakhsh, and I was sold on the idea that I would do my Ph.D. If you asked high school era me if I would end up doing a Ph.D. in engineering? Absolutely not. I did not see myself as having the skills or the competency. There was a lot of lack of self-confidence. I think the best life advice I can offer is that you don't need to know every step. It works for some people as they need that certainty, that linearity.
“At least based on my life experience, I would say give room to explore new paths and know that as you learn either in school or in life, you will learn more about yourself, your skills, what matters to you.”
It's really important to have something that you personally have an attachment to. Hopefully, it's not just a means to an end, it should be something that is fulfilling, and it may take time to figure out.
To be perfectly honest, I didn't come out until I was in my mid-20s, and by that time, I had finished my undergrad studies. I didn't necessarily deal with a lot of negative experiences as an LGBTQ+ person because that wasn't sort of who I identified as. There certainly were slurs and comments here and there as there were folks who assumed things of me when I was younger. And when I did come out, and into my career, I've been lucky that there's never been any real overtly hurtful comments or the feeling that you're being held back.
However, what did take time to build up was the confidence to be open at work about who I am. I can remember once I got married to my husband, folks at work would point at my wedding ring and say: "How long have you and your wife been married." Early in my career, I would say WE've been married for a year, but I wouldn't correct them. And it always ate away at me inside because I knew I wasn't being honest.
“I think the big thing is to be authentic at work. Otherwise, you spend so much of your time and energy trying to wall off parts of your existence, and that takes away the energy you can put into your work.”
I've been lucky to have supportive colleagues and to be working in a company that has a lot of initiatives around EDI (Equity, Diversity and Inclusion). Having that confidence to be authentic at work is huge. It means a lot to have a photo of me, my husband and son up at my desk or to be able to not hide my language around people just because I don't want to out myself.
I think there's also the feeling that is shared by anyone who comes from a minority group or is not "mainstream" that you sometimes have to work harder to prove yourself. Even for me, to this day, there can be that imposter syndrome feeling that I don't really deserve this because I'm breaking a mould of what people expect to see in a certain role. There are many people who identify as LGBTQ+ in STEM careers, and they have become more visible and more open about it. But certainly, there can be those moments where you can feel like the only one in the room.
We were talking about the challenges. So what about some positive things that came out of your identity?
Coming from a historically more marginalized community, I think it makes you more empathetic to the people around you. You understand what it feels like to be the only person in the room who holds a certain identity. So I think in the workplace, it has made me more consciously empathetic to involve people around me. It's only a title, but as a senior engineer, I have a role in mentoring and helping junior staff to grow their technical and career skills. If there's someone who is being spoken over or hasn't had a chance to contribute to a meeting, I'm more hypersensitive to that. So I think that's one of the positive things that come out of the LGBTQ+ experience. You are looking out for anyone who, for whatever reason, might have a little bit more of a challenge finding their voice, being authentic, and being part of the workplace conversations. I'm trying to make sure that everyone is heard, seen and included.
I think my biggest piece of advice, and this would go to anyone, is to find a mentor. Find someone who can help coach and have an open dialogue with. Especially if you are part of the LGBTQ+ community, it can be very helpful to find someone who is in an experienced role and identifies as LGBTQ+ to be a mentor— a resource in the professional sense. Maybe you've had a not-so-great or an awkward encounter at work; a mentor can be there to support and provide ideas for how to manage that moving forward. Some of the worst feelings in life is feeling alone or feeling that you're the only one who feels a certain way. And yeah, they don't have to be from the LGBTQ+ community, but someone that can act as that mentor and that sounding board for how you're feeling, both personally and professionally. That is my best piece of advice.
I will say it is my mom. When I was growing up, she went through a very difficult and painful divorce; things were financially and emotionally difficult for her. Now, as a parent, I can only imagine how hard it must have been for her to navigate being a single parent. But she was always supportive and tried to find a way to inspire my life. When I was a teenager, although it was a huge financial burden for her, I got to participate in two different exchanges, one to Taiwan and one to Brazil. That was huge and eye-opening for me: the ability to know that even coming from a background where money was tight, you can make things happen if you really want them to. That was really a big motivational seed that got planted in me. And to this day, because of those experiences, because of her kind of worldview, I value experiences far more than material things.
“The memories that you have, what you've taken in by putting yourself into a totally new situation or mastering a new hobby that you might be nervous or scared about. It gave you that sense of gratification, and those are the things that will last for your lifetime.”
That's why she is the most influential person. She always managed to make it clear that if it's what you want and what you're passionate about, she will support and help make it happen. I know it might be cliche to say, like, my mom, but it's true. I thought long and hard on this, and I realized if I chose some kind of famous figure, that would just be trying to sound impressive. But no, it's my mom.
That's a great question. I think that took the most thought for me to answer, and my answer is chlorine. Realistically, it was one of the biggest public health advancements of the modern era. Prior to that, the number of people who either died or were constantly sick from waterborne illnesses was phenomenally high. In terms of a public health intervention, it really improved the quality of life for so many people just by disinfecting water and wastewater with chlorine.
At the same time, chlorine is not a perfect solution. It can be problematic to handle or to work with. So I think it's a bit of a metaphor for us as humans that we're not perfect. We try to do the best that we can with who we are and with the resources at our fingertips, but we can always do better. Even though it's not the perfect answer, sometimes we need to start somewhere and then look into how to improve things. But I think overall, for the amount of good that came from learning how to harness it in water and wastewater engineering, I'd put it at the top ranking of the elements.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Can you tell us about your role and responsibilities as Senior Engineer at Suez?
What skill set do you think is important for someone to succeed as a water/waster water engineer?
What would you be doing today if you didn't pursue chemistry or environmental engineering?
Do you have any advice for young LGBTQ+ students or professionals in STEM?