Indo-American prof wins MacArthur ‘Genius’ grant
Thursday, 01/10/2015
http://paper.hindustantimes.com/epaper/viewer.aspx
WASHINGTON: Kartik Chandran, an Indian-American associate professor of earth and environmental engineering at Columbia Engineering, has been named a 2015 MacArthur Fellow with a “genius grant” of $625,000 with no strings attached.
Chandran, an IIT Roorkee graduate, has won the fellowship for his work in transforming wastewater from a pollutant requiring disposal to a resource for useful products, like commodity chemicals, energy sources, and fertilisers.
He joins a distinguished group of 24 talented people who have all demonstrated exceptional originality and dedication to their creative pursuits. The fellows may use the $625,000 stipend as they see fit.
“When I received the call telling me that I had been awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, I was rather overwhelmed,” Chandran said. Chandran’s research on the global nitrogen cycle and engineered wastewater treatment has been widely recognized. In 2011 he received a $1.5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a transformative new model in water and sanitation in Africa. His work is focused on integrating microbial ecology, molecular biology, and engineering to transform wastewater, sewage, and other “waste” streams from problematic pollutants to valuable resources in addition to clean water.
Chandran, who joined the Engineering School in 2005, has also won the Water Environment Research Foundation Paul L. Busch Award (2010), a National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2009), and a National Academies of Science Fellowship (2007).
