Fire Protection Engineers in ECDA, Class of 2024
Christine Chatfield, Vice President Hospitality, Jensen Hughes
Christine Chatfield is a registered fire protection engineer in the state of Maryland and has also obtained her PMP certification. Chatfield is the Vice President and Global Market Leader for Hospitality at Jensen Hughes, a fire protection and specialty consulting engineering firm. Chatfield has served in various roles within Jensen Hughes since receiving her B.S. in Fire Protection Engineering in 2008 and quickly began her leadership roles within Jensen Hughes by becoming a Senior Engineer managing a group of engineers in 2013 to rising to a Director in the Mid Atlantic shortly thereafter in 2017. In 2023 she was promoted to Global Market Leader for Hospitality and became one of the youngest females in the company to serve as a Global Market Leader. She is accountable for the revenue and margin on hospitality projects on a global scale for the company and works closely with operations SVPs, COO, and business development to grow the market. Since starting in the role in 2023 Jensen Hughes saw a 15% increase in growth in the Hospitality market and her contributions leading up helped Jensen Hughes receive top rankings in the Building Design + Construction hospitality engineering firms in 2022 and 2023.
Isaac Leventon, Fire Research Scientist, National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST)
Dr. Isaac Leventon is an alumnus of the University of Maryland, College Park where he completed his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. with the Department of Fire Protection Engineering. In 2018, he reimagined and has since led, the Engineered Fire Safe Products Project at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). In this role, Leventon has significantly enhanced NIST Fire Research capabilities by establishing a material flammability database that maintains and advances the tools needed for quantitative prediction of material flammability (e.g., ignition, steady burning, and fire growth). Leventon has been instrumental in developing state-of-the-art experimental measurements and automated analysis tools for material property determination (i.e., for fire model calibration); accurate, realistic, and efficient material property sets; and comprehensive datasets for advanced fire model validation.
Leventon is distinguished by his passion for technical collaboration as demonstrated by his involvement in international round-robin testing; leadership of the Condensed Phase Subgroup of the Measurement and Computation of Fire Phenomena Working Group (MaCFP, an international collaboration between experimentalists and modelers designed to enable systematic progress in fire modeling); and collaborations with external Universities and Federal Agencies on diverse research including electrical fires in Nuclear Power Plants, quantification of material burning behavior at multiple scales, and wildfire modeling. Leventon has prepared dozens of technical publications including peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers (9 as lead author) and non-refereed reports (including 6 NIST Technical Notes); he is also the co-organizer of multiple widely used digital repositories of fire experiments used for computational fire model validation.
Adam Levine, President, Capitol Fire Sprinkler
Adam Levine is the President of Capitol Fire Sprinkler, a fire sprinkler installation and service company in New York City that was founded in 1952.
Levine received a B.S. in Fire Protection Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2006. Levine is a Professional Engineer in Fire Protection and is licensed to perform fire suppression work in New York City, New Jersey, Nassau County, and Suffolk County. He is a Principal Member of the NFPA-14 Technical Committee (Standpipes), as well as a long tenured member of the NYC Building Code / Existing Building Code Fire Protection Technical Committee. He is also a member of the NYC FDNY Fire Code Advisory Committee and the NYC Plumbing and Fire Suppression Piping Licensing Board. Additionally, Levine is a voting member of the American Fire Sprinkler Association Technical Advisory Committee. Levine is also involved with various industry associations, including as the Vice President of the New York Fire Sprinkler Contractors Association and the Treasurer of the NYC Metro Chapter of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers. Additionally, Levine is the proud recipient of the AFSA 2023 Young Professional of the Year Award.
Levine received an M.B.A. from Baruch College in 2011. He continues his business development with his involvement with the Young Presidents' Organization (YPO), where he is an active board member of his local NYC Chapter. He is also involved with Vistage, a business coaching group, and the NY Alliance, a business growth group.
Rachel Lilienfeld, Lead Fire Protection Engineer, Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Currently, Rachel Lilienfeld is the Lead Fire Protection Engineer for Amazon Web Services (AWS). She is responsible for designing strategic safety systems and influences organizational growth for the entire AWS data center operations. As a fire protection engineer, she protects the environment, property, and most importantly, people, from the dangers of fire and explosions. Additionally, Lilienfeld was selected to be on a global technical committee for the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA).
Before joining the technology community with AWS in 2022, Lilienfeld worked for Bechtel, the #1 ranked U.S. contractor in the defense, environmental management, and energy industries. During her six years at Bechtel, Lilienfeld developed and improved fire protection systems for a first-of-a-kind radioactive waste treatment plant for the Department of Energy, a chemical weapon destruction facility for the Department of Defense, a carbon-free power plant designed to provide clean energy to millions of homes, along with other multi-million to multi-billion-dollar infrastructure projects. In one of her most noteworthy roles, Lilienfeld was the Lead Technical Engineering Representative for all fire protection systems in a state-of-the-art Uranium Processing Facility, with a combined value of more than 230 million dollars. This facility has a key role in strengthening our country’s defense and reducing the global threat from weapons of mass destruction.
Lilienfeld has a M.S. in Engineering from Purdue University, and a B.S. in Fire Protection Engineering from University of Maryland, College Park.
Steve Kerber, ECDA Class of 2022, is the Vice President and Executive Director of UL's Fire Safety Research Institute (FSRI). He leads a fire safety research team dedicated to addressing the world's unresolved fire safety risks and emerging dangers to reduce death, injury and loss from fire. Kerber has led research in the areas of fire safety engineering, firefighter safety, fire forensics, and fire science. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in fire protection engineering from the University of Maryland and completed his doctorate at Lund University in Sweden after defending his thesis titled, "Utilizing Research to Enhance Fire Service Knowledge." Kerber is also a 13-year veteran of the fire service, with most of his service at the College Park Fire Department in Prince George's County Maryland where he served at ranks up through Deputy Chief. He has also been appointed to the rank of Honorary Battalion Chief by the Fire Department of New York, was named the 2014 ISFSI and Fire Engineering George D. Post Instructor of the Year and was awarded the 2019 Metropolitan Fire Chiefs President’s Award of Distinction.
David Stacy, ECDA Class of 2022, Principal & Founder of Performance Based Fire Protection Engineering, PLLC, has over a decade of experience in the fire protection field. His niche work type and skills in computational modeling are the basis of his consulting firm, specifically focusing on fire and egress modeling, performance based designs, Smoke Control Rational Analyses (SCRA), and Alternative Means & Methods (AM&M). Stacy has contributed to the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE) at two national conferences through presenting material on the advancement of computer fire modeling. He is a licensed fire protection engineer in multiple states, as well as multiple-state firm licensure.
Stacy launched his firm in May of 2018 after working for a nationally recognized consulting firm. His company’s reputation and brand quickly grew, and hiring his first employee just before the first anniversary of the firm. Within year 2, his second employee was brought on board followed by 2 more employees within year 3. Stacy is maintaining the steady, yet consistent, growth of the firm in order to maintain technical excellence as himself, his employees, and the company continue to grow. In addition to mentoring and growing the firm, Stacy has also shared ownership opportunities and managerial responsibilities for all staff.
