Prof Buckley is a chemical engineer and has spent his career as a contract researcher in the field of urban and industrial water and effluent management at the University of Natal and currently the University of KwaZulu-Natal. The primary funding sources are the South African Water Research Commission, eThekwini Municipality, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Sasol and Umgeni Water. He has partnerships with many international research groups.

Susan Mercer holds a Master degree in Chemistry and has more than 15 years of experience in the field of cleaner production and waste minimisation. She first joined the Pollution Research Group in 1993 as a Project Leader until 2003 and was the project manager for the Danida Cleaner Textile Production Project. From 2004 to 2012, Susan was operating her own consulting company to further promote Cleaner Production, but recently returned to the PRG to assist in managing the Groups research projects.

Chris Brouckaert joined the Pollution Research Group in 1990 and holds a BSc in Chemical Engineering. Prior to joining Group he was lecturer in Chemical Engineering, University of KwaZulu-Natal. His areas of expertise include the Computational Fluid Dynamic modeling of water and wastewater treatment processes; modeling and application of membrane processes (reverse osmosis, nanofiltration, ultrafiltration and microfiltration) to industrial wastewater treatment, including laboratory-scale and pilot-scale tests and interpretation of the results; and modeling of atmospheric dispersion.

Tina Velkushanova is an Environmental Engineer and an expert in WASH and Sanitary Engineering. She holds a PhD degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Southampton, UK. She has been with the Pollution Research Group since 2012 and has been actively involved in a number of water and sanitation projects, particularly in the field of faecal sludge management. Some of these projects are funded under the “Reinvent the Toilet Challenge” and the “Transformative Technologies” programmes funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, dealing with innovative technologies development and evaluation in collaboration with local and international partnering organisations. Tina is currently running a BMGF funded grant – development of a book called “Methods for faecal sludge analysis” aiming at standardised approach of faecal sludge analysis worldwide with partners from EAWAG, Switzerland, IFE-Delft – the Netherlands and AIT – Thailand.


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With a chemical engineering degree, Dr. Santiago Septien Stringel obtained a PhD on biomass gasification in 2011 and performed a post-doctorate in the same domain for two more years, in French research centres. During this period, he acquired an expertise in thermochemical processes (pyrolysis, gasification, combustion) and biofuels. In 2014, he joined the Pollution Research Group at the University of KwaZulu-Natal to supervise master research projects funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Water Research Commission. Actually, he continues as a research staff in the Pollution Research Group, and his main task is to support sanitation practitioners. His main expertise has become thermal processes for sanitation applications.

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Barbara Brouckaert has a BSc in Chemical Engineering and a PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering. She has worked with the PRG on a part time contract basis since 1991. She has also worked for Umgeni Water as a Research Scientist, with the Universities of Fort Hare (RSA) and North Carolina at Charlotte (USA) as a Postdoctoral Researcher, and as a contract researcher with the Tshwane University of Technology (RSA). Her background includes drinking water treatment, specifically granular media filtration, disinfection and options for rural communities, and chemical speciation modelling. She has also been involved in developing and teaching postgraduate courses in Environmental Engineering. She is currently involved in the PRG's watewater treatment plant modelling projects.

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Colleen Archer is responsible for all helminth related laboratory work, especially Ascaris, concerning the safe re-use of sanitation waste. She also provides training for students and visiting scientists and is presently employed to do capacity building for all Gates grantees (internationally) who require training and quality control in this field of sanitation research.

Publications:

• ANDERSON CB, ARCHER CE, JACKSON TFHG, APPLETON CC & ADAMS, VJ (2001) Unusual Parasites and Common Artefacts found in Human Stools. Journal of the South African Veterinary Association 73: 153

• KVALSVIG JD, APPLETON CC, ARCHER CE, et al. (2001) The KwaZulu-Natal Parasite Control Programme 1998-2000. Report to the Department of Health of KwaZulu-Natal 42pp.

• ARCHER CE, APPLETON CC (2002) Comparison between locally produced and imported Kato-Katz kits for monitoring helminth control programmes in South Africa. The Southern African Journal of Epidemiology and Infection 17 (3,4): 39-41

• APPLETON CC & ARCHER CE (2006) Intestinal parasites of rats from Durban and implications for human health. (Abstract). Rats and Human Health in Africa: Proceedings of an international workshop on rodent-borne diseases and the Ratzooman research project 3-6 May 2006, Malelane, South Africa, pp.15-16

• PRIYA MOODLEY, COLLEEN ARCHER & DAVID HAWKSWORTH in association with LIZETTE LEIBACH (2008) Standard Methods for the Recovery and Enumeration of Helminth Ova in Waste-water, Sludge, Compost and Urine-Diversion Waste in South Africa. WRC TT Report No. 322/08

• CA BUCKLEY, KM FOXON, DJ HAWKSWORTH, C ARCHER, et al. (2008) Research into UD/VIDP (Urine Diversion/ Ventilated Improved Double Pit) Toilets: Prevalence and Die-off of Ascaris Ova in UD Waste. WRC TT Report No. 356/08

• KLARA J. PETRZELKOVA, HIDEO HASEGAWA, CHRIS C. APPLETON, MICHAEL A. HUFFMANN, COLLEEN ARCHER, et al; (2010) Gastrointestinal Parasites of the Chimpanzee Population Introduced onto Rubondo Island National Park, Tanzania. American Journal of Primatology 72:307-316

• LINDA TRÖNNBERG, DAVID HAWKSWORTH, ANETTE HANSEN, COLLEEN ARCHER, THOR-AXEL STENSTROM (2010) Household-based prevalence of helminthes and parasitic protozoa in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, assessed from faecal vault sampling. Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene 104:646-654

• CE ARCHER, CC APPLETON, S MUKARATIRWA, KJ HOPE (2011) The rat lung-worm, Angiostrongylus cantonensis: A first report in South Africa. South African Medical Journal 101 (3):174-175

• JULIO A. BENAVIDES, ELISE HUCHARD, NATHALIE PETTORELLI, ANDREW J. KING, MOLLY E. BROWN, COLLEEN E. ARCHER, CHRIS C. APPLETON, MICHAEL RAYMOND and GUY COWLISHAW (2012) From Parasite Encounter to Infection: Multiple-Scale Drivers of Parasite Richness in a Wild Social Primate Population. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 147 (1):52-63

• PAULA PEBSWORTH, COLLEEN ARCHER, MIKE HUFFMAN, CHRIS APPLETON (2012) Parasite Transmission Risk From Geophagic and Foraging Behavior in Chacma Baboons. American Journal of Primatology 7: 940-947

• ASTRID M KNOBLAUCH, MIRKO S WINKLER, COLLEEN ARCHER, MARK J DIVALL, MILKA OWUOR, RAOUL M YAPO, POKOU A YAO AND JÜRG UTZINGER (2014) The epidemiology of malaria and anaemia in the Bonikro mining area, central Côte d’Ivoire. Malaria Journal 13:194 http://www.malariajournal.com/content/13/1/194

• D. BELCHER, G.L. FOUTCH, J. SMAY, C. ARCHER, C.A. BUCKLEY (2015) Viscous heating effect on deactivation of helminth eggs in ventilated improved pit sludge. Water Science & Technology 72 (7): 1119-1126

Becky completed her degrees at University of Birmingham between 2005 and 2014. She worked as a Senior Research Scientist in Thames Water’s Wastewater Innovation for two years. She ran projects on energy-efficient wastewater process alternatives, low technology processes, improved resource recovery and efficient aeration, participating in active research as well as managing the research budgets and teams associated with those projects. She joined PRG in 2016, working on Municipality projects including water recycling strategy, DEWATS policy and oversight of black soldier fly larvae treatment research.

Publications:

• Sindall, R., Bridgeman, J., & Carliell-Marquet, C. (2013) Velocity gradient as a tool to characterise the link between mixing and biogas production in anaerobic waste digesters. Water Science & Technology, 67 (12), pp. 2800-2806.

Curriculum Vitae

Aimee completed her chemical engineering degrees at UKZN between 2009 and 2013. From 2014 to 2017 she worked as a process engineer for Fluor Igoda, where she gained experience in process control and design, equipment specification and performance optimisation. Aimee joined PRG at the end of 2017, where she is involved in various projects including work for the eThekwini Municipality and the Faecal Sludge Management Education Strategy.

Publications:

• Smith, A., Babaee, S., Mohammadi, A.H., Naidoo, P. and Ramjugernath, D., 2016. Clathrate hydrate dissociation conditions for refrigerant + sucrose aqueous solutions: Experimental measurement and thermodynamic modelling. Fluid Phase Equilibria, Volume 413, pp. 99-109.