Crittenden Wins Clarke Prize for Contributions to Water Sustainability and Water Treatment Technology

The National Water Research Institute prize is considered one of the world’s top honors in water research.

One of the world’s most prestigious honors will go to School of Civil and Environmental Engineering professor John Crittenden this fall.

The National Water Research Institute (NWRI) named Crittenden, director of the Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems and Hightower Chair and Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Environmental Technologies, the winner of the 2015 Clarke Prize, citing his contributions to the sustainability of urban water resources.

“I was extremely happy and honored to receive the 2015 Clarke Prize in recognition for our work in water research and to join the ranks of such an outstanding class of former Laureates,” Crittenden said. “I consider the Clarke Prize to be one of the greatest honors that one can receive who conducts water research.”

The award is one of only a handful of worldwide prizes for scholarly and practical achievements in water research, and the International Congress of Distinguished Awards recognizes it as one of the world’s top honors.

“His work in sustainability is particularly bold and innovative, and will change the way we will promote water security, enhance economic development, and alleviate concerns of wars over water,” Joseph B. Hughes said in the NWRI announcement of Crittenden’s award. Hughes is the dean of Drexel University’s College of Engineering and former chair of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. 

Crittenden will receive the award and deliver a keynote lecture in October at the Clarke Prize Conference. He is the first-ever winner from Georgia Tech, though provost and CEE professor Rafael Bras won the prize in 1998 when he was head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

More on the prize and Crittenden’s career from the NWRI (pdf).

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