Faculty and Students Win $780,000 Grant to Improve Sanitation
A CU-Boulder team recently won a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for its proposal to develop a solar-biochar toilet for use in developing countries throughout the world. The grant is part of the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge, or RTTC, initiated by the Gates Foundation to address a sanitation challenge affecting nearly 40 percent of the world’s population.
The team includes CEAE faculty Karl Linden and R. Scott Summers and civil engineering graduate students Joshua Kearns, Kyle Shimabuku, and Sara Beck.
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CU-Boulder News
Daily Camera
Report on National Disaster Resilience
CEAE professor Bernard Amadei is a member of a National Academies committee that recently reported on the nation’s resilience to natural and human-caused disasters. The full press release can be viewed here and the report summary is available here.
PhD Student Investigates Biochar for Water Treatment in Developing Countries
Civil engineering PhD student Joshua Kearns is researching ways to improve sanitation and water quality in developing communities through the use of biochar.
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College of Engineering and Applied Science profile
Daily Camera article with video
An Interview with Diane McKnight
CEAE professor Diane McKnight, who studies relationships between freshwater organisms, trace metals, and natural organic material, discusses her research in this interview with CU Connections.
CEAE PhD Student Awarded EPA STAR Fellowship
- Jessica Kaminsky
Jessica Kaminsky, a doctoral student working with Assistant Professor Amy Javernick-Will, was awarded a three-year fellowship through the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Science To Achieve Results (STAR) program. Jessica is a student studying in the Mortenson Center in Engineering for Developing Communities. Her research aims to improve the sustainability of household sanitation infrastructure.
Household sanitation systems, like septic tanks, are one of the most common sources of groundwater contamination in the United States. Both domestically and internationally, they suffer from high failure rates. While some of these failures are due to poor design, many are instead caused by inadequate maintenance and operation. To address this issue, Jessica’s research will quantify the social networks that impact sanitation systems in an effort to understand how knowledge flow impacts maintenance and operation.