JUNE NEWS 2010

Congratulations to Professors Nigel Graham, Cedo Maksimovic and Dr Ivan Stoianov

 Professors Nigel Graham, Cedo Maksimovic and Dr Ivan Stoianov along with 5 others from Cambridge University won the 2010 Telford Gold Medal award for their paper "Wireless Sensor Networks: Creating ‘Smart Infrastructure'", published in the ICE Proceedings - Civil Engineering in August 2009. The paper arose from a joint Imperial-Cambridge research project funded under the EPSRC WINES 2 scheme. They will be presented the Award at a Ceremony at the Institution on the 8th October.

Professor Nigel Graham was a member of an international panel of experts who recently (26-28 May 2010) carried out an academic review of the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering (DESE) of Tsinghua University, China. Among the academic staff of DESE is Professor Jining Chen, currently Executive Vice President of Tsinghua University, who was a former PhD student and post-doctoral research assistant at Imperial College in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

 Professor Nigel Graham attended the 2nd International Postgraduate Conference on Infrastructure and Environment, in Hong Kong during the 1st and 2nd June, organised by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. During the conference he gave a Key-note lecture entitled, ‘Current Challenges and Research in Water Treatment and Supply'. While in Hong Kong, Nigel Graham had discussions with academic staff at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University concerning future research collaboration and the current undergraduate exchange programme with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Imperial College. He also visited the University of Hong Kong (HKU) to discuss collaborative opportunities under the newly established joint PhD Programme between Imperial College and HKU.

Professor Stephen Smith recently completed a programme of research funded by Defra Waste & Resources Evidence Programme on recycling of industrial biowastes and digestates to farmland, the project report WR0214 "Agronomic benefit of industrial biowastes" has been published on the Defra R&D website.  

 Congratulations to Abdel Beshara who successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled "Processes for Improved Waste Management for Spent Bleaching Earth in Egypt"

 Dr Brad Clarke and Professor Stephen Smith were awarded the Prize for Best Paper presented at the recent Australian Water Association Specialty Biosolids Conference V in Sydney, 2-4 June. The title of their paper was ‘'Emerging' organic contaminants and their potential significance for the agricultural recycling of biosolids'.