FOUNTAIN VALLEY, CA --National Water Research Institute (NWRI) and the Joan Irvine Smith and Athalie R. Clarke Foundation will present the 2020 Clarke Prize to Dr. Karl Linden on November 10, 2020. Linden is the Mortenson Professor in Sustainable Development at the University of Colorado in Boulder and is an innovator in wastewater treatment technology. Currently, Linden’s research focuses on UV light-emitting diode (LED) and UV disinfection for water treatment systems.
For more than 20 years, Linden has pioneered UV water treatment systems that are used by the most advanced wastewater treatment systems in the world and are also used in water sanitation projects in developing countries to give people access to safe drinking water. His work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the EPA, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to name a few.
Among many other accolades, Linden won the 2020 Borchardt-Glysson Water Treatment Innovation Prize, the 2019 Dr. Pankaj Parekh Research Innovation Award from Water Research Foundation, and the 2019 Walter J. Weber Jr. Frontier in Research Award from the Association of Environmental Engineering & Science Professors (AEESP). He was president of AEESP for 2019-2020, and during his tenure he spoke out on important cultural issues such as diversity, inclusion, and sexual harassment.
At the University of Colorado, Linden is preparing a new generation of engineers to take water sanitation technologies into the future. Hi world-class research, demonstration, and outreach program at the university is a major international center for water engineering in the developing world. Many of his former students have gone on to establish highly productive and influential scientific careers.
NWRI, which administers the $50,000 Clarke Prize, is honored to recognize Dr. Karl Linden for his leadership.
