December 2023
- Qi received the Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-financed Students Abroad (2022) from the Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC). This is a prestigious award granted to a select group of no more than 650 Ph.D. students or Post-doctoral researchers worldwide each year. Congratulations, Qi!
November 2023
- Seyed has been selected to be featured in the Fall Convocation 2023 profile by the Faculty of Engineering. Read the story of his amazing journey at the University of Alberta here. Congratulations, Seyed!
October 2023
- Qi received the Dr. Donald R Stanley Graduate Scholarship in Environmental (Civil) Engineering. Congratulations, Qi!
September 2023
- Seyed defended his Ph.D. thesis on thermal hydrolysis of sludge for process intensification and mitigation of oxidative stress of nanoplastics in anaerobic digestion. Congratulations, Dr. Azizi!
- Calvin received another prestigious scholarship, Ivy A Thomson and William A Thomson Graduate Scholarship. Congratulations, Calvin!
- Parisa successfully defended her master’s thesis on the fate of biodegradable disposables in high-solids anaerobic digestion followed by hydrothermal liquefaction. Congratulations, Parisa!
- Dr. Simran Kaur Dhillon joined the lab as a postdoctoral fellow. She completed her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, in 2023. Before joining us, she worked as a postdoc in UK. Welcome, Simran!
- Monisha’s review article on boosting thermophilic anaerobic digestion with conductive materials has been accepted for publication in Chemosphere. Congratulations, Monisha!
- Dr. Sherif Ismail joined the lab as a postdoctoral fellow. He completed his Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology, in 2019. Before joining us, he worked as a postdoc in China. Welcome, Sherif!
August 2023
- Calvin was awarded the Canada Graduate Scholarships – Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplements (CGS-MSFSS). This award is given to high-caliber Canadian graduate students in building global linkages and international networks through the pursuit of exceptional research experiences at research institutions abroad. This award will support his 3 months research visit to Stanford University. Congratulations, Calvin!
- Seyed was awarded Dr. Donald R Stanley Graduate Scholarship in Environmental (Civil) Engineering for the second consecutive year. Congratulations, Seyed!
- Parisa received the Chevron Graduate Scholarship in Natural Gas Engineering. Congratulations, Parisa!
- Monisha received the Westmoreland Coal Company Graduate Scholarship in Environmental Engineering and the Petro-Canada Graduate Scholarship. Congratulations, Monisha!
- Calvin received the Westmoreland Coal Company Graduate Scholarship in Environmental Engineering. Congratulations, Calvin!
- Our paper on syntrophic microbial communities and their interactions with polystyrene nanoplastics in a microbial electrolysis cell has been accepted for publication in the Science of the Total Environment journal. Congratulations, Basem et al.!
June 2023
- Seyed was awarded Andrew Stewart Memorial Graduate Prize (2023). This award is given in direct recognition of excellence in research at the doctoral level. Congratulations, Seyed!
- Dr. Alsayed Mostafa joined the lab as a postdoctoral fellow. He completed his Ph.D. in Smart-city Engineering from Inha University, South Korea, in 2022. Before joining us, he worked as a postdoc in the USA. Welcome, Alsayed!
- Our paper on pilot demonstration of the application of conductive additives for high-solids anaerobic digestion has been accepted for publication in Bioresource Technology. This was teamwork by Seyed, Basem, and Nervana. Several former and current team members assisted with the commissioning and operation of the pilot reactors. Congratulations, team!
- Our paper on a bench-scale comparison of microaeration and iron dosing for in-situ biogas desulfurization has been accepted for publication in ACS ES&T Water. This was excellent teamwork by Seyed, Basem, Nervana, and Parisa in collaboration with EPCOR. Congratulations to the team!
- Calvin received the Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Scholarship. This is one of the most prestigious graduate scholarships administered by the UofA. Clavin is the second recipient of this scholarship from our group. Since joining our lab in 2017, he has also received NSERC CGS, Alberta Innovates, and numerous prestigious internal/external scholarships. Congratulations, Calvin!
- Calvin was awarded the Best Oral Presentation Award – 1st Place at the 2nd Canadian IWA Young Water Professionals Conference in Vancouver, BC, on June 1-3, 2023. Congratulations, Calvin!
- Calvin and Seyed presented their work at the 2nd Canadian IWA Young Water Professionals Conference in Vancouver, BC, on June 1-3, 2023. Also, Parisa volunteered at the conference.
May 2023
- A new Ph.D. student, Sami Khaskheli, joined the lab. Sami completed his MS in Environmental Engineering from the US Pakistan Center of Advance Studies in Water (USPCASW), Mehran UET Jamshoro, Pakistan. He is a recipient of Higher Education Commission (HEC) Pakistan Overseas Scholarship. Welcome, Sami!
- Qi’s paper on improving microbial electrolysis cell-assisted anaerobic digestion of blackwater with granular activated carbon amendment has been accepted for publication in Bioresource Technology. Congratulations, Qi!
April 2023
- Calvin and Seyed received the Graduate Student Teaching Award from the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research (FGSR) for their outstanding performance as Teaching Assistants in Fall 2022. Congratulations, Seyed and Calvin!
- Nervana’s article on antibiotic resistance genes proliferation under anaerobic degradation of bioplastics has been accepted for publication in Environment International. Congratulations, Nervana et al.!
March 2023
- Seyed’s paper on the significance of solids content in sludge thermal hydrolysis for mitigating oxidative stress of polystyrene nanoplastics in anaerobic digestion has been accepted for publication in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering. Congratulations, Seyed et al.!
- Visiting professor Dr. Deng’s review paper on phosphorus recovery from wastewater via calcium phosphate precipitation has been accepted in Chemosphere. Throughout her one-year tenure in the Dhar lab, she focused on a sustainable approach to recovering phosphate from wastewater. Congratulations, Dr. Deng!
March 2023
- Parisa and Seyed presented their work at the 58th CENTRAL Canadian Symposium on Water Quality Research in Toronto (March 20-21).
- Dr. Dhar was elected as Vice-President (Western) of the Executive Committee of the Canadian Association on Water Quality (CAWQ).
- Parisa’s paper on biodegradability and transformation of biodegradable disposables in high-solids anaerobic digestion followed by hydrothermal liquefaction has been accepted for publication in Resources, Conservation & Recycling. Congratulations, Parisa and the team!
- Seyed’s paper on the application of granular activated carbon for remediation of antibiotic resistance propagation and methanogenic inhibition induced by polystyrene nanoplastics in anaerobic digestion has been accepted for publication in Bioresource Technology. Congratulations, Seyed et al.!
- Nervana’s research article “Propagation of antibiotic resistance genes during anaerobic digestion of thermally hydrolyzed sludge and their correlation with extracellular polymeric substances” was listed as one of the top 100 downloaded Chemistry papers (among 1600+ published in this category in 2022) for Scientific Reports in 2022. Congratulations, Nervana et al.!
- Our paper on an ensemble machine learning approach for examining critical process parameters and scale-up opportunities of microbial electrochemical systems for hydrogen peroxide production has been accepted for publication in Chemosphere. It was a collaboration between our team and the 4S Analytics and Modeling Team. Congratulations, Calvin et al.!
February 2023
- Seyed was awarded the Martha Piper Award in recognition of his research communication excellence. Congratulations, Seyed!
- Dr. Dhar joined the editorial board of the Water Environment Research (WER) journal.
January 2023
- M.Sc. student Anindya Amal Chakrabarty joined the lab. Welcome, Anindya!
