Hello IUVA YPs! For those who were able to join us at the IUVA Americas conference, we hope you enjoyed yourselves – it’s always great to see new and familiar faces at our conferences! If you’d like to become more involved with the YP Committee, please reach out through our website (https://iuva.org/IUVA-Young-Professionals) or by email (iuvayp@iuva.org). We’ll have stories from the conference in the next issue, but for now, we have updates from our podcasters at Wavelength and two YP member highlights!
Podcast Updates
Since the last time you’ve heard from us, we’ve released two new episodes of our podcast, Wavelength (available on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, etc.). The first episode, titled “Reaching Those Left Behind: Achieving Universal Access to Safe Drinking Water,” with Dr. Sara Marks, highlights the IUVA World Congress UN SDG Task Force workshop on improving the sustainability of UV disinfection systems in low resource settings. As a part of the workshop, Karlye Wong (University of Toronto, UN SDG Task Force) sat down with Dr. Marks, a world-leading researcher, professor and group leader of the Water Supply and Treatment group at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology and an advisor to the World Health Organization on small water systems. They discussed systemic challenges to achieving more widespread global access to safe drinking water and key considerations for the adoption of relatively new water technologies, like UV disinfection. If you want to learn more, check out Dr. Marks’ work (https://www.eawag.ch/en/about-us/portrait/organisation/staff/profile/sara-marks/show/), the UN SDG Task Force (https://iuva.org/UN-Sustainable-Development-Goals-Task-Force) and the WHO Guidelines for drinking water quality: small water supplies, (https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240088740).
In the second episode, co-hosts Dan and Molly are joined by the @waterprof himself, Dr. Karl Linden. Dr. Linden is a professor of environmental engineering and the Mortenson Professor in Sustainable Development at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he researches advanced treatment systems for water and wastewater. Dr. Linden also is one of the pioneers of UV water treatment – from 2013-2016, he was president of the IUVA, and in 2023, he received the IUVA Lifetime Achievement Award. The trio talk about the state of the UV industry, Dr. Linden’s origins and inspirations in water research, a potential Karl Linden “The Water Guy” podcast, Grateful Dead albums and trekking through Central America! You can learn more about the Linden Research Group here at https://www.colorado.edu/klinden/.
YP Members Spotlight
This quarter, we also are spotlighting two IUVA YPs – Dr. Hao Luo and Anthony Pimentel. We sat down with both Dr. Luo and Pimentel to get to know them a bit better, learn about their projects and gather some advice. Here’s what they had to say:
Dr. Hao Luo, University of Alberta
https://www.linkedin.com/in/hao-luo-phd/
I am excited to share that I recently graduated with my Ph.D. from the University of Alberta in January! My dissertation, titled, “Experimental Evaluation and Modeling of an In-duct Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation System for Bioaerosol Disinfection,” explored how system designs, operating conditions and bioaerosol characteristics affect the performance of in-duct UVGI systems. Although my initial focus was on Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations for indoor environments and UV-PCO technology at the start of my Ph.D., the pandemic prompted a shift in my research to UVGI for air disinfection due to the urgent need for airborne transmission mitigation. This pivot not only broadened my research scope but allowed me to make significant contributions to the field. Our findings revealed some critical influencing factors for the in-duct UVGI system and led to the development of a practical design flowchart that aids in the effective system design. We recommended the use of high-power UV lamps, diffuse reflection-dominated reflective duct materials, and slow- to intermediate-airflow rates to enhance disinfection efficiency.
I had the opportunity to attend the World Congress in Dubai last year, and I met a lot of the IUVA family there. Since then, I have been actively taking volunteer roles with IUVA; I am currently the co-chair for the Air and Surface Treatment task force (TRAST)! We have a subgroup focusing on reviewing current experimental methods of determining UV rate constants for airborne microorganisms, and we are considering initiating a new sub-group to explore the role of UV technology in healthy and sustainable buildings, such as how the UVGI can help with the building energy use, GHG reduction and decarbonization. There still is a long way to go to promote UV air treatment, both scientifically and application-wise, so if you’re interested in joining our committee, please reach out (hluo7@ualberta.ca).
My piece of advice to new YPs in the UV industry would be to embrace the unknown! My transition from petroleum and chemical engineering to UV technology underscores the dynamic nature of our fields. Staying curious and questioning “why?” and “how?” can lead to groundbreaking discoveries. Remember, all experts started as beginners, and the UV community is incredibly supportive and collaborative.
Anthony Pimentel, Black & Veatch
https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-pimentel/
I am a process engineer with Black and Veatch, an engineering consulting firm that does a lot of work in water and wastewater treatment. I did my undergraduate and graduate studies at University of Colorado – Boulder, where I started working in UV in my junior year. I got a scholarship for a research project and worked on UV-based advanced oxidation. In graduate school, I researched alternative wavelengths to generate radicals via UV/chlorine in carbon-based water reuse applications. I now live in Los Angeles, California, and work on wastewater disinfection, UV disinfection, a little bit of drinking water UV disinfection and a lot of non-potable reuse with UV disinfection and advanced oxidation. I’ve been involved with the IUVA before with the scavenging demand committee and now also am working with the YP committee.
One of the projects I’m working on with Black & Veatch is the Water Research Foundation 5173: Feasibility of Full-Scale Implementation of UV LED Disinfection. This project aims to evaluate the effectiveness of UV LEDs for microbial inactivation and demonstrate the potential for full-scale application across drinking water and wastewater. One of my roles is to lead our Regulatory Engagement subtask. We have been working with more than 14 federal and state regulators in the US and Canada to help increase the level of comfort with UV LED technologies, identify knowledge gaps and better define the concerns/challenges for implementation. Overall, we have had wonderful involvement with the regulators, and it seems promising that UV LED disinfection may be approved for municipal implementation soon! This is very exciting, as we’re starting to bridge the deep understanding of UV technology we have as UV industry professionals to those in the greater water/wastewater treatment industry. On top of that, we’re seeing how new UV technologies can be even more sustainable compared to existing ones.
My piece of advice to YP members is to share your ideas! Don’t be afraid to throw things out there. UV is considered a new technology, and we’re still developing and optimizing these processes to make them more effective and efficient. Stay up to date with the research, and if you have ideas, don’t be afraid to shout them out! They might end up being very effective or saving a lot of money.
