FREMONT – Kartik Chandran is Asst. Professor and Director of the Environmental Health Engineering and CUBES Programs at Columbia University , has been awarded $1.5 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He has been awarded for his project to develop a revolutionary new model in water, sanitation, and energy.
The main focus of Dr. Chandran’s work is on understanding the microbial transformations of the global N cycle at the molecular mechanism, structural and functional ecology and metabolic modeling levels. Dr. Chandran leads the multiagency supported Wastewater Treatment and Climate Change program at Columbia University.
Along with Chandran working on this project were his partners Ashley Murray, founder and director of Waste Enterprisers, and Moses Mensah, a Chemical Engineering professor at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.
The trio aim to develop a bioprocess technology to convert the organic compounds present in fecal sludge to biodiesel and methane, two potent sources of energy, and thus convert a waste-processing facility into a biorefinery.
