Academic Investigators and Project Manager

Prof William Sloan FRSE has grown a multidisciplinary water and environment group at UoG with a mix of skills that is tailored for tackling grand challenges. He holds a Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) Chair in Emerging Technologies. His expertise is in developing theory on the dynamics of microbial communities used in biotechnologies.

Fiona Lees is the Project Manager for the grant and supports the project’s financial reporting and monitoring processes, and co-ordinates the project administration. Fiona has experience in managing and coordinating projects and brings strong technical, financial and organisational skills to the role.

Prof Cindy Smith holds the RAEng-Scottish Water Research Chair. She has been PI on a diverse portfolio of research projects in molecular biology methods, fish microbiomes, nitrogen cycling and drinking water microbiology.

January 2024 – University of Liverpool

Prof Zhibin Yu leads the thermal energy technologies research group at Glasgow and is pioneering the exploitation of low-grade heat sources in a variety of EPSRC, GCRF and ETP projects. His low carbon heating and cooling technologies have found wide application.

Dr Andrea Semiao is a senior lecturer and directs the world-leading research on novel membrane technologies at UoE and her research extends into novel application of membranes in bioengineered systems and resource recovery with the support from RCUK and other funding bodies, including Scottish Water.

Prof Jaime Amezaga is a professor in Environmental Sustainability at Newcastle University has an international reputation for his research on the interface between technology, policy and institutional analysis in sustainable water challenges. His ideas resonate in rapidly changing developing world settings. Recently, he has been deputy director of a large GCRF Hub (ES/S008179/1) and Co-I on another (NE/S008926/1). He is also Newcastle University lead on an EPSRC water-related doctoral training centre.

Dr Jen Roberts is a Senior Lecturer and Chancellor’s Fellow in Engineering at the Strathclyde University. Her interdisciplinary applied research addresses the social and environmental risks of low-carbon energy and water technologies.  Ultimately her work aims to inform how the net-zero transition can be implemented in a way that is acceptable to society and to the environment.

March 2021 to March 2023

Dr Rebecca Ford was a Senior Lecturer and Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Strathclyde in both the politics and electrical engineering departments. In this role she explored how the interaction of people energy and water systems can affect infrastructure, policy, business models and culture. She was the research director of the EPSRC EnergyREV consortium (EP/S031863/1) which explores the role of decentralised energy systems in a net-zero future.  Rebecca is now Head of Demand and Flexibility at Regen.

Prof Jill Robbie is a specialist in the law governing the natural environment, particularly in relation to water. Jill collaborates across Europe, North America and South Africa. She is also Deputy Chair of NatureScot and a qualified solicitor.

Dr Alasdair Clark is a senior lecturer in biomedical engineering in UoG and former RAEng research fellow. He develops low-cost photonic sensors, including the much publicised ‘optical tongue’ that tests for fake whisky.

Dr Stephanie Connelly is a lecturer in environmental engineering, previously a recipient of an EPSRC doctoral prize fellowship, who specialises wastewater treatment in developing world settings. She holds a number of UKRI GCRF grants on novel sanitation technologies.

Dr Umer Ijaz is a reader in engineering informatics and was the recipient of a NERC independent fellowship researching environmental genomics of microbial communities. His research aims to develop novel bioinformatic pipelines and statistical methods for genomics data derived from complex microbial communities in any environment.  In recognition of his research achievements, Dr Ijaz has received honorary appointments as; Honorary Visiting Professor, Department of Molecular & Clinical Cancer Medicine, University of Liverpool and Visiting Lectureship at the College of Science and Engineering, NUI Galway.

Dr Caroline Gauchotte-Lindsay in a senior lecturer in environmental and analytical chemistry who is expert in marker discovery for environmental biochemical processes and is PI on two GU funded chemical sensor design projects. She is a recipient of the Brownfield Greening award for her practical research in remediation.

Dr Siming You is a lecturer who deploys systems engineering approaches to the design and optimization of bioenergy systems; his research has been applied in practice for decentralised waste management in Singapore and his recent perspective in Science calls for a more generally distributed yet orchestrated response to waste management in the light of the COVID pandemic.

Dr Marta Vignola holds a Royal Academy of Engineering for Development Research Fellowship on the development of Eco-engineered biofilters for the sustainable removal of pesticides from drinking water in Brazil.