This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
This award supports a collaborative research program between the University of South Florida and the UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education in Delft, the Netherlands. The Institute for Water Education is the largest postgraduate water education facility in the world and the only institution in the UN system authorized to confer accredited MSc degrees and promote PhDs. Annually, a team of six students (graduate and undergraduate) from USF will participate in an eight-week summer research experience. Reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of water studies, the students will be selected from environmental engineering, global health, chemical engineering and environmental & occupational health. The research activities will focus on developing technologies to help advance the UN?s Millenium Development Goals related to safe drinking water and sanitation in three main areas: water recycling and desalination, waste treatment for sanitation and energy, and water purification. USF students will be mentored by IHE professors, postdoctoral researchers and doctoral students. Students will work with IHE students, many of whom are water managers from developing countries, as well as visit Dutch utilities, other universities and NGOs. Internet-facilitated multimedia meetings with USF will occur throughout the program period and a symposium will be held at IHE at the end of the program for students to present their research findings.
