NWRI Fellowships Announced: Inaugural Ronald B. Linsky Fellowship Awarded

The National Water Research Institute (NWRI) has announced the 2007 recipients of its NWRI Fellowships. Eleven graduate students received the award, bringing the year’s total to 19 students.

Every summer, the NWRI awards over $100,000 in new fellowships to support master’s or doctoral graduate research related to water resources. The research pertains to NWRI’s mission, which is to create new sources of water through research and technology and to protect human health and the environment.

The inaugural Ronald B. Linsky Fellowship for Outstanding Water Research—consisting of $20,000 a year for 2 years—was awarded to Douglas Call (pictured), an M.S./Ph.D. candidate in Environmental Engineering at Penssylvania State University; his advisor is Dr. Bruce Logan. Call’s research is on accelerating the use of microbial fuel cells, a breakthrough technology for generating electricity and treating biodegradable organic matter in wastewater. Not only would this research provide the water community with an efficient approach to treating wastewater, but it can also make it possible for wastewater treatment plants to produce their own electricity.

Several other students received partnership fellowships, such as the two students who received $10,000-a-year NWRI-AMTA Fellowships for Membrane Technology. Eva Steinle-Darling of Stanford University is examining the extent to which reverse osmosis and nanofiltration membranes are effective in removing perfluorochemical contaminants from recycled water, while Kendra Coylar of the University of Colorado at Boulder, proposes using membrane separation processes to recycle water back to bio-refineries, thereby conserving water and improving the economics of producing biofuel.

Source: NWRI