BJ has a bachelors degree in Chemical Engineering and a research background in biofuels and renewable energy from waste sources.She joined the Sol-Char Sanitation team as a masters student, researching the use of the system's byproduct charcoal from human waste as a solid fuel for domestic heating and cooking in the developing world. After completing her masters, she worked in Ghana on another fuel-from-sanitation byproducts research project, and has since returned to Colorado as a researcher on the Sol-Char team. Her current research focuses on assessing the performance of human waste chars when co-fired with coal in power plants and also on characterizing the emissions and potential health effects of waste charcoal combustion byproducts.