* The AEESP Awards Committee has ultimate discretion for which Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation award gets selected.
This award, endowed by Jacobs Engineering Group, is given annually to recognize an outstanding doctoral dissertation that contributes to the advancement of environmental science and engineering. The award consists of a plaque and a cash prize of $1,500 for the student, and a plaque and a cash prize of $500 for the faculty advisor. A $750 travel allotment is provided to the student recipient if he or she attends the awards ceremony. A total allotment of $750 is also available to support travel of the faculty advisor to the awards ceremony, or may be shared by faculty co-advisors who attend the ceremony.
Refer to the nomination package for the required submission requirements.
Faculty advisors are encouraged to nominate dissertations completed under their supervision but must limit themselves to a single entry. Nominated dissertations must be from the calendar year prior to when the award is given, i.e., the due date printed on the dissertation cover must be from the prior calendar year prior to the nomination year.
*Eligibility: Dissertations must have been from the previous calendar year, as per the cover page of the dissertation. Dissertations may be submitted up to one year late, but only under very extenuating circumstances. This is at the discretion of the Chair of the Awards Committee, but with approval from the AEESP President.
Click here for a summary of past Student Award winners.
Past Recipients
| Year | Recipient | Dissertation Title | Advisor |
| 2023 | Cody L. Ritt | Elucidating the Mechanisms of Water and Ion Transport Under Nanoconfinement | Menachem Elimelech, Yale University |
| 2022 | Danielle T. Webb | Sorption of Neonicotinoid Insecticides and their Metabolites to Granular Activated Carbon: Implications for Exposure, Treatment, and Biotransformation | Gregory H. LeFevre, University of Iowa |
| 2021 | Ran Mei | Investigating the Roles of Microbial Immigration in Wastewater Treatment Processes | Wen-Tso Liu, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
| 2020 | Christopher E. Lawson | Metabolic versatility and interactions of nitrogen cycling microbiomes | Katherine 'Trina' McMahon and Daniel Noguera, University of Wisconsin Madison |
| 2019 | Haoran Wei | Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy for Environmental Analysis - Optimization and Quantification | Peter Vikesland, Virginia Tech |
| 2018 | Carrie McDonough | Spatial Distribution, Air-Water Exchange, and Toxicity of Organic Pollutants Using Passive Samplers | Ranier Lohmann, Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode Island |
| 2017 | William Rhoads | Growth of Opportunistic Pathogens in Domestic Plumbing: Building Standards, System Operation, and Design | Marc A. Edwards and Amy Pruden, Virginia Tech |
| 2017 | Yi Jiang | Crumpled Graphene Oxide: Aerosol Synthesis and Environmental Applications | Pratim Biswas and John Fortner, Washington University in St. Louis |
| 2016 | Lauren Stadler | Elucidating the Impact of Low Dissolved Oxygen Wastewater Treatment on Pharmaceutical Fate | Nancy G. Love, University of Michigan |
| *2016 | Nicolette A. Zhou (*Honorable Mention) | Trace Organic Contaminant Degradation by Isolated Bacteria Bioaugmented into Lab-Scale Reactors and Identification of Associated Degradation Genes | Heidi L. Gough, University of Washington |
| 2015 | Ngai Yin Yip | Sustainable Production of Water and Energy with Osmotically Driven Membrane Processes and Ion-Exchange Membrane Processes | Menachem Elimelech, Yale University |
| 2014 | Bahareh Asadishad | Transport and Survival of Bacteria in Model Aquatic Environments: Role of Water Chemistry, Surface Geochemistry, and Temperature | Nathalie Tufenkji and Subhasis Ghosha, McGill University |
| 2013 | Mari Winkler | Magic Granules | Mark van Loosdrecht, Delft University of Technology |
| 2012 | Wen Zhang | Characterizing, imaging, and quantifying the environmental behavior and biological interactions of metal-based nanoparticles | Yongsheng Chen, Georgia Institute of Technology |
| 2011 | Manish Kumar | Biomimetic Membranes as New Materials for Applications in Environmental Engineering and Biology | Julie Ziles and Mark Clark, UIUC |
| 2011 | Lee D. Bryant | Dynamic forcing of oxygen, iron, and manganese fluxes at the sediment-water interface in lakes and reservoirs | John C. Little, VA Tech, and Alfred Wüest, EAWAG |
| 2010 | Elijah Thimson | Metal Oxide Semiconductors for Solar Energy Harvesting | Pratim Biswas, Washington University in St. Louis |
| 2010 | David Berry | Molecular and Ecological Mechanisms of Bacterial Response to the Drinking Water Disinfectant Monochloramine | Lutgarde Raskin, University of Michigan |
| 2009 | Shaomei He | Population Structure and Gene Expression of Candidatus Accumulibacter in Enhanced Biological Phosphorous Removal | Katherina (Trina) McMahon, University of Wisconsin-Madison |
| 2009 | Michael Dodd | Characterization of Ozone-Based Treatment as a Means of Eliminating the Target-Specific Biological Activities of Municipal Wastewater-Borne Antibacterial Compounds | Urs von Gunten, EAWAG, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology |
| 2008 | Shaily Mahendra | Biodegradation of 1,4-Dioxane by Aerobic Bacteria: Experimental Studies and Modeling of Oxidation Kinetics, Co-contaminant Effects, and Biochemical Pathways | Lisa Alvarez-Cohen, University of California, Berkeley |
| 2008 | Hyeok Choi | Novel Preparation of Nanostructured TiO2 Photocatalytic Particles, Films, Membranes, and Devices for Environmental Applications | Dionysios D. Dionysiou, University of Cincinnati |
| 2007 | Jeremiah Johnson | Material Flows and Energy Use in Anthropogenic Metal Cycles | Thomas E. Graedel, Yale University |
| 2007 | John Dyer Fortner | C60 in Water: Aggregation Characterization, Reactivity and Behavior | Joseph B. Hughes, Rice University |
| 2007 | (Honorable Mention) Guo-Ping Sheng | Surface Characteristics of Microbial Aggregates in Wastewater Treatment Bioreactors | Han-Qing Yu, University of Science and Technology of China |
| 2006 | Thanh Helen Nguyen | Sorption of Nonionic Organic Chemicals to Soil/Sediment Organic Matter and Black Carbon | William Ball, Johns Hopkins University |
| 2006 | Dominic Frigon | Mechanism Explaining Seasonal Biological Foaming in Activated Sludge Wastewater Treatment Systems: Foam-Causing Bacteria Specialize in Consuming Lipids | Lutgarde Raskin, University of Illinois |
| 2005 | Adrian Oehmen | The Competition Between Polyphosphate Accumulating Organisms and Glycogen Accumulating Organisms in the Enhanced Biological Phosphorous Removal Process | Zhinguo Yuan and Jurg Keller, University of Queensland |
| 2004 | Pramod Kulkarni | Studies on the Transport and Deposition of Charged Nanoparticles | Pratim Biswas, Washington University in St. Louis |
| 2003 | Michael McCormick | Biotic and Abiotic Transformations of Alkyl Halides in Iron-Reducing Environments | Peter Adriaens, University of Michigan |
| 2002 | Eric M.V. Hoek | Colloidal Fouling Mechanisms in Reverse Osmosis and Nanofiltration | Menachem Elimelech, Yale University |
| 2001 | Jordan Peccia | The Response of Airborne Bacteria to Ultraviolet Germicidal Radiation | Mark Hernandez, University of Colorado |
| 2000 | William A. Arnold | Kinetics and Pathways of Chlorinated Ethylene and Chlorinated Ethane Reaction with Zero-Valent Metals | A. Lynn Roberts, Johns Hopkins |
| 1999 | Andrew J. Schuler | The Effects of Varying Influent Phosphate and Acetate Concentrations on Enhancing Biological Removal of Phosphate from Wastewater | David Jenkins, University of California at Berkeley |
| 1998 | Weilin Huang | Sorption and Desorption by Soils and Sediments: Effects of Sorbent Heterogeneity | Walter J. Weber, University of Michigan |
| 1997 | James E. Anderson | Effect of Chlorinated Ethene Biodegradation on Growth Rates of Methanotrophic Bacteria in Biofilms and Mixed Cultures | Perry McCarty, Stanford University |
| 1996 | Melinda W. Hahn | Deposition and Reetrainment of Brownian Particles Under Unfavorable Chemical Conditions | Charles O'Melia, The Johns Hopkins University |
| 1995 | Eric Alan Seagren | Quantitative Evaluation of Flushing and Biodegradation for Enhancing In-Situ Dissolution of Nonaqueous-Phase Liquids | Bruce Rittmann, Northwestern University |
| 1994 | James Farrell | Desorption Equilibrium and Kinetics of Chlorinated Solvents on Model Solids, Aquifer Sediments and Soils | Martin Reinhard, Stanford University |
| 1993 | Radisav Vidic | Oxidative Coupling of Phenols on Activated Carbon-Fundamentals and Implications | Makram Suidan, University of Cincinnati |
| 1992 | Marc Edwards | Ozonation: Transformation of Natural Organic Matter, Effect on Organic Matter - Coagulant Interactions, and Ozone-Induced Particle Destabilization | Mark Benjamin, University of Washington |
| 1991 | Robert E. Martin | Quantitative Description of Bacterial Deposition and Initial Biofilm Development in Porous Media | Edward J. Bouwer, The Johns Hopkins University |
| 1990 | Craig S. Criddle | Reductive Dehalogenation in Microbial and Electrolytic Model Systems | Perry L. McCarty, Stanford University |
| 1989 | Jacques Manem | Interactions Between Heterotrophic and Autotrophic Bacteria in Fixed-Film Biological Processes Used in Water Treatment | Bruce E. Rittmann, University of Illinois (Urbana) |
| 1988 | John E. Tobiason | Physicochemical Aspects of Particle Deposition in Porous Media | Charles R. O'Melia, The Johns Hopkins University |