Congratulations to Mahmut Ersan, Wilson Beita-Sandi and Erin Partlan, our 2017 Water Environment Association of South Carolina (WEASC) Fellowship recipients! The WEASC fellowships support graduate level students who are currently enrolled or accepted to a master’s or doctoral degree program in Environmental Engineering and Science. The sponsoring agency is the Water Environment Federation (WEF) South Carolina Section whose focus is on drinking water and wastewater utilities. The individual awards are named after former faculty members in our department who established themselves as leaders in the field.
The students were recognized at the luncheon during the South Carolina Environmental Conference in Myrtle Beach in March.
A. Ray Abernathy Fellowship Recipient: Mahmut Ersan
Mahmut is a Ph.D. candidate in Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences at Clemson University. In 2011, he received an award from Turkish Ministry of Education for his doctoral studies. His research interests include physicochemical processes in drinking water treatment such as membrane filtration, granular and powdered activated carbon adsorption, ion exchange, and hybrid treatment technologies to minimize the formation of disinfection by products (DBPs). He has authored or co-authored 11 peer-reviewed journal articles. One of his articles, “N-Nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) Precursors Leach from Nanofiltration Membranes” was honored by being featured on the cover of the March 2015 issue of Environmental Science & Technology Letters.
Linvil G. Rich Fellowship Recipient: Wilson Beita-Sandi
Wilson is a chemist, graduated from the University of Costa Rica. He received his master’s degree from Clemson University in 2013. Currently, he is a Ph.D. student working with Dr. Tanju Karanfil in the Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences at Clemson University. His dissertation focuses on the control of emerging and regulated disinfection byproducts using fundamental water treatment processes. Specifically, he works with ion exchange resins and carbon adsorption for controlling NDMA and THM precursors.
Thomas Keinath Fellowship Recipient: Erin Partlan
Erin came to Clemson in the Fall of 2011 from Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, CA, where she received a bachelor’s degree in Engineering. She completed her master’s degree in Clemson’s Environmental Engineering program in 2013, writing a thesis on the use of dissolved CO2 for the removal of inorganic scale from reverse osmosis membranes in groundwater desalination. She continues to pursue her Ph.D. at Clemson with research on membranes for drinking water treatment, this time in conjunction with activated carbon for contaminant adsorption. Her research explores superfine activated carbon, a novel adsorption material, coupled with microfiltration membranes for trace contaminant removal.
Erin has interests in all aspects of the water industry and is looking forward to a career involving advanced water treatment technology and public policy.
