Achievements - Advanced Wastewater Management Centre<

2008

AWARDS

The UQ Miracle Workers Award recognises outstanding contribution of staff to their respective departments. Wendy Mahon, Head of Administration, of the AWMC was awarded a 2008 Miracle Workers award in recognition of exceptional leadership, professionalism, efficancy, commitment, outstanding levels of communication, inspirational and willing to go the extra mile - a critical contributor to the Centre's operations.
Dr Sandra Hall, from UQ's Advanced Water Management Centre (AWMC), has been named the Queensland Young Water Professional of the Year for 2008
Bilexys, a spin-off form the AWMC Microbial Fuel Cell Team, took out the $100,000 Enterprize. Bilexys with its team of world renowned advanced water management experts, has developed a highly efficient and cost effective water treatment technology for the removal of dissolved organic compounds from wastewaters.
The 2nd Australian Young Water Professionals conference was held 4-6 February 2008 at the University of Queensland. Dr Korneel Rabaey took 1st prize in the Case Studies for his presentation on building a pilot scale Microbial Fuel Cell at the Foster's Brewery and PhD Student Janani Mohanakrishnan won 2nd place in the Short Presentation Category for her paper on the transformations of biofilms in sewer systems.
A collaborative project, led by AWMC Researchers, entitled “Model Based Management of Hydrogen Sulfide in Sewers” was awarded the East Asia & Pacific Regional IWA Project Innovation Award 2008 in the category of Applied Research. The award, announced on 26th June during Singapore International Water Week, recognises excellence and innovation in water engineering project throughout the world.
Building on the success the Sewer Networks team was awarded the 2008 Excellence award in Research Development and Innovation by Engineers Australia - Queensland.

GRANTS

Dr Phil Bond has received a $300,000 award from the Queensland Governments Smart State Initiatives to investigate ways to develop new technology wastewater treatment. The research will focus on developing more cost-effective technology to treat wastewater and to better protect the environment from potentially damaging nutrients.
The Advanced Water Management Centre has had a very successful ARC funding round with 3 Discovery Grants, including an ARF and an APD fellowship, and 1 Linkage Grant, with total funding in the 2009 round at almost $ 2 Million. Congratulations to all staff involved.

2007

AWARDS

Linda Blackall, now of AIMS, won the Smart Women - Smart State Award 2007 in the Community/Public Sector - Science Prize for her contribution to research on wastewater management
Korneel Rabaey was a finalist in the 2007 Australian Museum Eureka Prize in the category of Young Leaders in Environmental Issues and CLimate Change. This is in recognition of Korneel's pioneering work on sustainable wastewater treatment involving the development of microbial fuel cells (MFCs), a novel technology to generate energy during wastewater treatment.
Linda Blackall won the Women in Technology, University of Queensland Sponsored Biotechnology Researchers Award in recognition of her lifetime contribution to the field of Biotechnology.
Luke Burow (PhD Student) won the Best Student Paper 2007 Award at the Annual Conference of the Environmental Biotechnology CRC
Luke Burow was awarded the Becton Dickinson PhD Student Award - Australian Society for Microbiology (2007), the most prestigious prize in Microbiology in Queensland
Sue Read was awarded a Smart State fellowship to conduct her studies on the Microbial Ecology of Microbial Fuel Cells
Paritam Duta and Stafano Freguia won Best poster and paper awards (respectively) at the 11th World Congress on Anaerobic Digestion

GRANTS

Professor Linda Blackall will lead an AWMC and Environmental Biotechnology CRC team to link with leading European researchers to advance a revolutionary "fast sludge" process after receiving $823,500 from the International Science Linkages program of the Federal Government's Department of Education, Science and Training.
Veolia Water France, one of the world's leading water infrastructure companies, funded a $2.5 million Chair in Water Recycling at the AWMC
Dr Damien Batstone received $619,000 to develop better technology for organic solids handling from the Queensland Government's $200 million Smart State Innovation Funding Program
A joint project between the AWMC and Foster's to turn beer wastewater into electricity won $140,000 from the Queensland Government's Sustainable Energy Innovation Fund
Zhiguo Yuan, Jurg Keller and colleagues from domestic and foreign Universities, and Water Utilities across the country won a $4.5 Million Australian Research Council Linkage grant to undertake the largest project yet to tackle odour and concrete pipe corrosion in the sewerage system. This is the largest ARC Linkage ever awarded.

2006

ASSOCIATION ACHIEVEMENTS

Prof Linda Blackall was elected Chair of the ISME 2008 Conference to be held in Cairns, August 2008.
Dr Sandra Hall was elected Chair of the Queensland Branch of Australian Society for Microbiology.
Prof Jürg Keller was elected Chair of IWA (Australia).
Prof Zhiguo Yuan was elected President of the IWA Specialist Group on ICA.

GRANTS

Prof Linda Blackall was awarded an Australian Research Council Grant.
Dr Damien Batstone was awarded a UQ New Staff Research Grant for 2006.
Dr Phil Bond was awarded an Industrial Partnership Grant: BBSRC, Anglian Water and Yorkshire Water (UK): A new approach to understanding enhanced biological phosphorus removal – April 2006 to April 2009.
Dr Korneel Rabaey was awarded a UQ Early Career Researcher Grant for 2006.
Dr Raymond Zeng was awarded a UQ Early Career Researcher Grant for 2006.

PHD ACHIEVEMENTS

Ms Janani Mohanakrishnan was awarded a Graduate Student Travel Grant.
Ms Jessica Welch was awarded a Graduate Student Travel Grant.
Ms Yan Zhou was awarded best poster presentation at the EBCRC Annual Conference, Sydney, Australia.

PUBLICATIONS

Congratulations, Prof Linda Blackall, on your publication in the highly prestigious journal, Nature Biotechnology, together with other authors: Martin, H.G., Ivanova, N., Kunin, V., Warnecke, F., Barry, K., McHardy, A.C., Yeates, C., He, S., Salamov, A., Szeto, E., Dalin, E., Putnam, N., Rigoutsos, I., Kyrpides, N.C., Blackall, L.L., McMahon, K.D. & Hugenholtz, P. (2006a). Metagenomic analysis of two enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) sludge communities. 24:1263-1269.

TEACHING AND LEARNING

A/Prof Paul Lant, Dr Catherine Manathunga and A/Prof George Mellick were awarded the 2006 Carrick Australian Awards for University Teaching for Postgraduate Education - Research Project Virtual Portfolios.

2005

Prof Linda Blackall

Prof Blackall was presented with the Ardern & Lockett Award in recognition of her major contribution to activated sludge population dynamics. This is only the second time this award has been presented.

Prof Jürg Keller

At the 2005 UQ Excellence in Teaching and Learning Awards Prof Keller was presented with the Excellence in Research Higher Degree Supervision Award. Prof Keller was also recognised by AEESP/CH2M-Hill for his supervisory role with Adrian Oehmen’s PhD dissertation.

A/Prof Zhiguo Yuan

A/Prof Yuan was recognised by the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors for his supervisory role with Adrian Oehmen’s PhD dissertation. A/Prof Yuan was elected Chair of the IWA Specialist Group on Instrument, Control and Automation, in Busan, Korea, 2005.

Adrian Oehmen

Winner of the 2005 AEESP/CH2M-Hill Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award from the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors. It is the first time in the award’s 17-year history that a student from a non-US university has won this award.

Yu Dai

Yu won a Graduate School Research Travel Award for 2005. Yu used the award money to further her studies at the New University of Lisbon, Portugal.

Luke Burow

Luke won a Queensland Government Smart State grant in 2005 for his PhD research. Luke has used the award money to further his studies in Denmark

Rikke Meyer, Aaron Saunders and Prof Linda Blackall

At the 4th ASPD Conference the above were awarded the prize for the best poster in Session 2 Nitrogen & Phosphorous removal for their poster “Novel glycogen-accumulating organisms identified through rRNA-based stable isotope probing”.