Growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, Zach attended St. Ignatius High School before moving to Chicago to attend Loyola University Chicago. His studies concentrated on broadcast news, poetry, and human interaction, resulting in a BA in Communication from Loyola University Chicago.

During his undergraduate studies at Loyola, Zach participated in the first inception of CUERP's Solutions to Environmental Problems (STEP) Biodiesel course as part of the Communication and Marketing Team. The course's unique, interdisciplinary approach to environmental education drew Zach’s attention away from broadcast news as he began to focus on communicating the complex issue of sustainability to those outside the scientific field.  Zach continued his affiliation with CUERP as a Biodiesel Lab Intern. Plumbing, power tools, and the daily challenge of explaining how used fryer grease had anything to with sustainability made up the remainder of Zach’s collegiate life.

Still intrigued by the challenges of communicating sustainability’s interdisciplinary reality, Zach currently serves as CUERP's Biodiesel Lab Manager and is working on promoting small scale biodiesel production as a means of contextualizing sustainability, improving Loyola’s biodiesel production, and learning as much as he can during the green revolution.

zwaickm@luc.edu
773-508-8852
Biodiesel Lab
www.luc.edu/biodiesel