WRF announces $100K research prize

Yesterday, the Water Research Foundation (WRF) announced the winner of its 2021 Paul L. Busch Award. The $100,000 research prize will go to Dr. Z. Jason Ren for his innovative research in water.

With the award money, Dr. Ren will develop an inventory and digital tools to easily measure and track greenhouse gas emissions from the wastewater sector. On October 7, at 3:00 p.m. ET, WRF will host a webcast showcasing Dr. Ren’s research and the work that he will conduct with the funding of his Paul L. Busch Award. 

Dr. Ren is a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment at Princeton University in New Jersey. He is a leading expert on the water-energy nexus and has received notable recognitions, including the 2020 Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize from the American Society of Civil Engineers for “producing groundbreaking technological advancements that are transforming water infrastructure for energy and resource recovery.”

Dr. Ren’s proposed research articulates an actionable approach to modernize wastewater treatment toward decarbonization and digitization. He understands the critical needs of the water and wastewater sectors in developing greenhouse gas (GHG) emission monitoring and mitigation programs, considering the sector’s commitment to energy efficiency and GHG emission reductions. Dr. Ren plans to leverage state-of-the-art sensing technologies to measure emissions from specific sites, and then use machine learning tools to derive industry trends from the new data.

Dr. Ren was selected for this award because of his novel, data-driven approach to quantifying emissions, and the tools and web applications he plans to create to make that data usable by water utilities looking to manage the emissions from their facilities.

On winning the award, Dr. Ren says, “It is a great honor to receive the 2021 Paul L. Busch Award and join many leaders in the field to advance water research and modernize the water industry. I am grateful for WRF’s support in taking this critical first step to understand the true emissions from the wastewater sector.”

Current emission accounting methods for wastewater resource recovery facilities are based on direct measurements or emission factor-based modeling. Direct measurements rely on grab samples or in situ measurements, which represent data from a specific point source, such as a sludge digester, at a specific time, but do not represent emissions from the entire plant site, which are subject to large daily and seasonal variations.

The Paul L. Busch Award will enable Dr. Ren to use a new systematic approach, integrating advanced sensing of direct emissions at the plant level and machine learning tools to better understand emissions from the industry at large. His team will work with WRF, utility partners, and research collaborators to conduct surveys, execute a national data collection effort, and fill the knowledge and data gap on plant-integrated emissions. 

“I hope to help develop long-term decarbonization strategies and technologies that can help utilities, and specifically, under-resourced utilities. I am excited to work with partners and develop an interactive platform for stakeholders to make better predictions and decisions for building more equitable, resilient, and sustainable water infrastructure,” said Ren.

For 20 years, the WRF Endowment for Innovation in Applied Water Quality Research has supported the Paul L. Busch Award, providing more than $2M in funding to up-and-coming researchers who are making major breakthroughs in the water quality industry.