Vasiliki Keramida - Our People - Purdue Engineering

Vasiliki Keramida

Chief Executive Officer, Chief Technical Officer, and Founder, KERAMIDA Inc.
MSCE 1976, PhD CE 1979

For her expertise in offering both technical and strategic development insight into waste, air, and water remediation services to clients nationwide and abroad.

Professor James Etzel left an indelible impression on Vasiliki “Vicky” Keramida that remains with her today. Etzel (1929-2011), whom Keramida describes as running the Environmental Engineering Department with an iron fist, also had a soft side and treated his PhD students like family.

“He had an amazing ability to create ‘rules of thumb’ for almost all engineering principles, which he passed to his students with a knowing smile, stating, ‘You don’t need an equation.” Kermida adds, “He had an infinite desire to help his students. He was a superb teacher.”

It was under Etzel’s guidance, while still his student in graduate school, that Keramida dipped her toe in the water and found she loved consulting. “I recognized my power as an engineer to solve actual challenges and advise clients on strategies to protect their company, as well as human health and the environment.”

This introduction served as the basis of her life’s work for more than 30 years. Within only nine years of earning her doctorate, she established KERAMIDA, Inc., an Indianapolis-based global engineering and consulting firm that offers worldwide strategy and implementation services in sustainability, greenhouse gases, energy, environment, and health and safety compliance. Keramida’s clients include many Fortune 500 companies, municipalities, state agencies, banking institutions, and law practices. A nationally recognized authority on the investigation and remediation of contaminated sites, Keramida frequently is called upon to testify as an expert witness.

In 2000, she privatized a U.S. Department of Defence (USDOD) program and founded a California sustainability research and development company, TECHNIKON LLC, whose major clients included the USDOD and U.S. car manufacturers. TECHNIKON focused on green manufacturing to eliminate air pollution and wastes.In addition, it provided validation services to the USDOD for  biomass-to-energy-to-diesel processes. TECHNIKON became a nonprofit institute in 2011 after it completed its research for the DOD was complete.

KERAMIDA was the first consulting company in the U.S. to focus on sustainability and climate strategies and services over 30 years ago and today is considered a premier advisory firm, globally, in the areas of sustainability, climate, and assurance.  Keramida, an international authority on sustainability, credits Dr. Etzel for instilling sustainability principles in her education and way of thinking.  We just called them “best engineering practices,” she says.  But still today, “that’s what the essence of sustainability is”, she notes. 

Keramida holds two U.S. patents, one on the treatment of hazardous wastes and another on the destruction of hazardous vapors. She has published and presented more than 200 technical papers at national and international conferences on sustainability and environmental subjects, authored and/or co-authored numerous technical manuals, and written chapters for two technical textbooks.

She serves on multiple industrial, sustainability and environmental committees and sits on the board of directors for several industrial associations.  She is the founder of two endeavors— the Keramida Foundation for Sustainable Living and the Keramida Museum of Art.

A familiar face in the Lyles School of Civil Engineering, she was honored in 1997 with the Civil Engineering Alumni Achievement Award.  Keramida often shares her experiences in the classroom and offers advice to students. She has taught the CE senior design course and has reviewed and judged student presentations in the  course. She is a member of the Civil Engineering Advisory Council. She is the recipient of the American Foundry Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award and Purdue’s Outstanding Educator Award. In addition, she was instrumental in creating two endowments for the Lyles School — the Civil Engineering Advisory Council Scholarship and, fittingly, the Dr. James Etzel Endowment that memorializes her favorite professor.

When looking back at her success, she notes, “I am what I am because he (Etzel) was my teacher and mentor.” Keramida continues, “For today’s graduates, learn the art of persuasion.  Learn how to communicate.”

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