Jason Ren, professor of civil and environmental engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, has been awarded the 2021 Paul L. Busch Award from the Water Research Foundation. The award, in its 20th year, recognizes researchers who are making major breakthroughs in the water quality industry.
Ren was selected because of his novel, data-driven approach to quantifying emissions, and the tools and web applications he will create to make that data usable by water utilities that seek to manage the emissions from their facilities. Historically, emissions coming from wastewater treatment plants have been very difficult to measure because there is not a single point source of pollution from the facilities, but the plants also would not be considered non-point sources. This ambiguity requires a new framework for and approach to measurement.
