Theory into Practice: Addressing Water-Energy-Health-Environment (WEHE) Nexus
Thursday 7 March 202411:00 – 13:00
Online (via Zoom)
Missed the live event? Watch the replay here:
Clean Water & Sanitation, Affordable and Clean Energy, Good Health & Well-being, Environment (Climate Action) are listed among several Sustainable Development Goals by the United Nations. This workshop is seeking contributions from researchers addressing the world’s most pressing development challenges related to the Water-Energy-Health-Environment (WEHE) nexus.
This workshop is hosted by the University of Bradford.
Theory into Practice: Addressing Water-Energy-Health-Environment (WEHE) Nexus
Host: Professor Iqbal Mujtaba, Professor of Chemical Engineering, University of Bradford, UK
Biography: Prof. Mujtaba is Professor of Chemical Engineering, a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of the IChemE. Professor Mujtaba leads research in distillation, energy, desalination and wastewater treatment. He has organised and chaired several symposiums/Workshops linked to Water, Energy, Food and Environment (Qatar, 2015, India, 2015, South Africa, 2016, Jordan 2024) supported by the Royal Society, the British Council, the Department of Science and Technology (India), WTUN and the Royal Academy of Engineering. He co-authored textbooks (1) ‘Wastewater treatment by Reverse Osmosis’ (2) ‘Desalination Technology: Design & Operation’. He also co-edited books (1) Water-Food-Energy Nexus (2) Water Management: Social & Technological Perspective. See more- bradford.ac.uk/staff/immujtaba/
Speakers:
Professor Ir. Dr. Dominic Foo, Professor of Process Design and Integration at the University of Nottingham Malaysia
Title: ‘Process integration for conservation of water resources’
Biography: Professor Ir. Dr. Dominic Foo is a Professor of Process Design and Integration at the University of Nottingham Malaysia, and is the Founding Director for the Centre of Excellence for Green Technologies. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE), Fellow of the Academy of Sciences Malaysia (ASM), Fellow of the Institution of Engineers Malaysia (IEM), Chartered Engineer (CEng) with the Engineering Council UK, Professional Engineer (PEng) with the Board of Engineer Malaysia (BEM), ASEAN Chartered Professional Engineers (ACPE), as well as the Past President for the Asia Pacific Confederation of Chemical Engineering (APCChE). He is top 2% world-renowned scientist according to Stanford List, working in process integration for resource conservation and CO2 reduction. He collaborates with more than 50 research scholars and industrial practitioners over Asia, Europe, North America and Africa. Professor Foo is an active author, with 10 books, more than 210 journal papers and made more than 240 conference presentations, with over 45 keynote/plenary speeches. Professor Foo is the Editor-in-Chief for Process Integration and Optimization for Sustainability (Springer Nature), Subject Editor for Process Safety & Environmental Protection (Elsevier), and editorial board members for several other renowned journals. He is the winners of the Innovator of the Year Award 2009 of IChemE, Young Engineer Award 2010 of IEM, Outstanding Young Malaysian Award 2012 of Junior Chamber International (JCI), Outstanding Asian Researcher and Engineer 2013 (Society of Chemical Engineers, Japan), Vice-Chancellor’s Achievement Award 2014 (University of Nottingham) and Top Research Scientist Malaysia 2016 (ASM).
Professor Ciprian Daniel Neagu, Professor of Computing
Title: ‘Sustainable and Responsible AI for UN SDGs
Biography: Ciprian Daniel Neagu was appointed Professor of Computing with the University of Bradford in 2011: he joined the Department of Computer Science as Lecturer in 2002, and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2005. He has previously served as Associate Professor at the Department of Computer Science & Engineering, University of Galati, Romania (1993-2001). Daniel received his PhD Cum Laude in Computer Science (2000) at the University of Galati after he obtained a 5-year MEng degree (1990) in Automation and Computer Engineering (Distinction) from Technical University of Iasi and a BSc (Hons) 1st class degree (1995) in Information Technology from University of Galati. He spent a research period (1999) at University of Patras, Greece, with Human Computer Interaction Group led by Professor Nikolaos Avouris. After successfully defending his Ph.D. thesis entitled Using Artificial Neural Networks in Fuzzy Reasoning, Daniel was appointed Research Fellow at Dipartimento di Elettronica e Informazione, Politecnico di Milano, Italy (2001-2002), where he joined the FP5 European Research Network IMAGETOX (Intelligent Modelling Algorithms for General Evaluation of TOXicities) working with Professor Giuseppina Gini.
His research focuses on Artificial Intelligence techniques applied in (Automotive) Engineering, Product Safety, Toxicology, Healthcare, Online Social Networks. Daniels research has been motivated by his desire to advance the AI field by studying systems from rigorous computational perspectives. The main theme throughout his academic work is to develop models of multidisciplinary information systems by the fusion of experts knowledge and digital information. He strongly believes Computer Science is now a media for knowledge representation, exchange and retrieval to serve multidisciplinary objectives and purposes. Mining information to identify key attributes and making unknown, hidden, distributed information accessible to people plays a vital role in the progress of science and technology, thus Daniels work addresses applications as diverse as health, security and entertainment. See more- bradford.ac.uk/staff/dneagu/
Dr Pedro Arcelus-Arrillaga, Assistant Prof in Chemical Engineering
Title: ‘Solar Heated Hydrothermal Liquefaction of Organic Waste’
Biography: Dr. Pedro Arcelus-Arrillaga is an Assistant Professor at the Chemical Engineering Department in the University of Bradford. He received his PhD and MSc degrees in Chemical Engineering from Imperial College London. His bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering was obtained with honours from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). His research interests are within the areas of energy and fuel processing, including the application of thermochemical and hydrothermal processes to transform non-conventional feedstocks, such as heavy oil, biomass and organic waste into fuel and value-added products. Dr. Arcelus was awarded the 2016 Townend Prize by the Imperial College London for the best research work or critical analysis in any of the areas of combustion, fuel production and / or its use. He has a strong track record of research outputs in the areas of chemical engineering, fuel technology, energy engineering and catalysis. Dr. Arcelus has extensive experience in teaching theory and laboratory modules in fundamental areas of the Chemical Engineering such as Reaction Engineering and Thermodynamics. He has achieved the status of Fellow (FHEA) by AdvancedHE and he is a Senior member of the AIChE. He has a strong collaboration network with researchers from various renowned institutions in the United Kingdom, Spain, Mexico, and Colombia. See more- bradford.ac.uk/staff/parcelus/
Prof Raed Abd-Alhameed, Professor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Title: ‘Monitoring of femur fractures in real time using RF sensors supplemented by artificial intelligence’
Biography: Raed A Abd-Alhameed is Professor of Electromagnetic and Radio Frequency Engineering at the University of Bradford, UK. He received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from Basrah University, in 1982 and 1985 respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Bradford, UK, in 1997, all in electrical engineering. He has long years research experience over 25 years in the areas of Radio Frequency, Communications systems, Signal processing, antennas and electromagnetic computational techniques, and has published over 800 academic journal and conference papers; in addition he is co-authors of eight books and several book chapters. He is the senior academic responsible for electromagnetics research in the communications research group, in which a new antenna design configurations and computational techniques have been developed including several patents were considered and filed. Jointly with Dr James M Noras and Prof Excell, he has developed the principle of the hybrid method for electromagnetic field computation, which is able to combine the most appropriate method for differing regions of a problem (e.g. the human head and a mobile telephone). This method is recognised as being a leading area of research in Bioelectromagnetic field computation. He also investigates the reduction of the size of antennas for personal mobile communications. The development of this kind of antenna is under active investigation (seven patent applications submitted). He has also developed the mathematical tools needed for the simulation of non-linear circuits, including energy-storing devices. See more – bradford.ac.uk/staff/raaabd/
Prof Rami Qahwaji, Professor of Visual Computing
Title: ‘Space Technologies and AI for Improved Environmental Monitoring’
Biography: Rami Qahwaji is a Professor of Visual Computing at the University of Bradford. He has been working with different industries in the fields of satellite/space imaging, remote sensing, digital health and imaging, Biometrics, AI and data visualisation developing intelligent systems in collaboration with NASA, ESA, NHS and different SMEs. Rami attracted millions of pounds in research funding from various UK and European funding agencies. He is the REF 2021 Unit of Assessment Coordinator for Computer Science and Informatics (B11) and he has a REF impact case study that was rated as 100% internationally excellent (3*) https://www.bradford.ac.uk/research/impact/ref-2021/solar-flare-detection/. Rami was a member of the University Senate and also the University Council (2019-2022). He was the Academic Lead for the Healthcare Technology Unit at the Digital Health Enterprise Zone (DHEZ). The DHEZ programme is a £13M partnership led by the University of Bradford and backed by investment from BT, City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council and the UK government. Rami was the Academic Director for the Digital Catapult Centre Yorkshire (2015-2018). See more – bradford.ac.uk/staff/rsrqahwaji/
Prof Farshid Sefat, Associate Professor in Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine
Title: ‘Importance of Clean Water in Managing Bacterial Vaginosis (BV)’
Biography: Dr Farshid Sefat is Programme Leader and Associate Professor in Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine at the University of Bradford (UK) and previously was head of Biomedical Engineering Department at King Faisal University (KSA) and also a Visiting Professor at Stevens Institute of Technology (New Jersey, USA). He completed his post doctorate research assistant at University of Sheffield (UK) in the area of cornea tissue engineering. He received his Ph.D. (2011) and BEng. (2005) degrees from University of Bradford (UK) both in Biomedical Engineering. He also obtained his MSc. (2006) in Cell and Tissue Engineering from Keele University (UK). His research is based on developing biomaterials to control cellular behaviour with particular emphasis in developing engineered materials for various tissue engineering applications. He is an author on >100 peer-reviewed journal articles, editorials and review papers and >60 book chapters/edited books. He is on the editorial boards and reviewer of >30 numerous journals including Materials Today, Acta Biomaterialia, IEEE, Bone, MDPI, Journal of Orthopaedics & Rheumatology, Materials Science and Engineering C, Journal of Biomechanics and many more. See more – bradford.ac.uk/staff/fsefat1/
Dr James Robert Innes, Postdoctoral Research Associate
Title: ‘Tyre Recycling and Engineering Solutions’
Biography: Dr. J Robert Innes, was awarded a PhD in Materials Science by the University of Manchester in 2019. During which he worked at the National Graphene Institute, reinforcing elastomer matrices with graphene related materials in order to target specific industrial problems, research jointly funded by the EPSRC and BP. He developed expertise in mechanical characterisation, Raman spectroscopy and AFM whilst investigating graphene nanoplatelets and their corresponding elastomer nanocomposites.
From 2019-Current, he has been working at the Polymer IRC on an EPSRC funded Low Carbon project investigating the processing of difficult to recycle polymers and elastomers. The research has so far demonstrated that compatibility between polymers and recyclates can be enhanced by reactive extrusion using twin screw extruders, publication pending.
Characterisation of devulcanized ground tyre rubber has been an important element of the current work plan, with a view to producing recycled elastomers closer to virgin-like materials. See more – bradford.ac.uk/staff/jinnes1/
Dr. Cuong Dao, Assistant Professor in Mechanical and Energy Systems
Title: – ‘Renewable Energy Systems Reliability, Operation & Maintenance and Environmental Impact Assessments – A Case Study in Wind Energy Systems’
Biography: Dr Cuong Dao (BSc ’06, MSc ’09, & PhD ’16) obtained his PhD in Reliability and Maintenance Engineering from the University of Alberta, Canada. Prior to joining Bradford University, he was a Post-Doctoral Research Associate at the Department Engineering, Durham University (2018-2020) and a Postdoc Researcher at the University of Twente, The Netherlands (2016-2018). He also served as a Mechanical Engineer at Canon Vietnam Ltd. and Reliability Engineer at Enmax Generation Canada. Dr Dao is currently a Programme Leader (UG/MEng) in Mechanical Engineering and an active researcher in the reliability, asset management, operation and maintenance management of mechanical engineering and sustainable energy systems. If you are passionate about doing research in this area or have any questions related to our programmes, please send an inquiry to d.c.dao@bradford.ac.uk. See more – bradford.ac.uk/staff/dcdao/
Dr. Juhana Jaafar, University Technology Malaysia,
Title: ‘Photocatalytic Membrane for Wastewater Treatment’