MAY 2008 NEWS

Welcome to Caroline Ballard

Welcome to Caroline Ballard a new Research Student under the supervison of Professor Howard Wheater and Dr Neil McIntyre. Caroline is 27 and comes from New Zealand. She graduated (BE and ME degrees) from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, Department of Civil Engineering.  Her Masters thesis was in the field of Environmental Fluid Dynamics. For the past 4 years, Caroline has been working as a consulting engineer in New Zealand, Australia and Belgium, working on water resources, urban drainage and sewerage projects.  She will be working on the FRMRC2 project (Flood Risk Management Research Consortium Phase 2).

Dr Sanjeev Gupta (Department of Earth Sciences) and Dr Neil McIntyre (EWRE) will be investigating the palae-hydrology of the planet Mars. Large-scale channels on Mars are thought to have been sculpted from mega-floods following massive water eruptions. The project will use new high-resolution imaging to simulate the mega-flood hydrology. The research is funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council starting in October 2008

Dr Stephen Smith is travelling to Adelaide in June to present two papers at the Australian Water Association Biosolids Specialty Conference IV, 11-12 June (www.awa.asn.au/events/bsc4). He is also coauthor of a paper to be presented with the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology reporting results from a collaborative Smart Water Fund project on Pathogen risk and nutrient status of air-dried and stored biosolids. Also a PhD student from his research group, Hannah Rigby, will present some of her work on nitrogen transformations in biosolids-amended agricultural soil. Hannah, who is about to submit her thesis, has been appointed as a postdoctoral researcher at Curtin University of Technology in Western Australia and will be working on the effects of alum-treated biosolids on soils with Dr Deb Pritchard.

Dr Smith was elected to the UK Chapter of the Select Society of Sanitary Sludge Shovellers (5S) on 9 May 2008. The UK membership is limited to 50 people, who are elected to join in recognition of their contribution to the water industry in the area of wastewater and sludge treatment and management. The original Chapter was formed in Arizona in 1940 and there are chapters in many of the United States and in Canada and New Zealand. The UK Chapter was established in the 1970s.  r Smith was elected to the UK Chapter of the Select Society of Sanitary Sludge Shovellers (5S) on 9 May 2008. The UK membership is limited to 50 people, who are elected to join in recognition of their contribution to the water industry in the area of wastewater and sludge treatment and management. The original Chapter was formed in Arizona in 1940 and there are chapters in many of the United States and in Canada and New Zealand. The UK Chapter was established in the 1970s. 

Farewell to Bethana Jackson who is leaving us at the end of this month.  Bethana has been in the EWRE section for many years from PhD student to a valued member of our research team.  She is going back to her native New Zealand to take up the position of Lecturer at the Victoria  University of Wellington in the School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences.  We wish her well for the future.