Professors group honors Alvarez for engineering education

By Patrick Kurp
Special to the Rice News

Pedro Alvarez, the George R. Brown Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and director of the National Science Foundation-backed Center for Nanotechnology-Enabled Water Treatment at Rice University, has received the 2018 Perry L. McCarty Founders’ Award from the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP).

Pedro Alvarez

The award recognizes “significant contributions in environmental engineering, education, research and practice.” Alvarez will receive the award Oct. 1 at the annual Water Environment Federation’s Technical Exhibition and Conference in New Orleans.

Alvarez joined the Rice faculty in 2004 and served as the civil and environmental engineering department chair from 2005 to 2015. He has pioneered research on environmental nanotechnology, including the risks posed to microbial ecosystem services by released nanomaterials and nano-enabled disinfection and microbial control.

Earlier this year, Alvarez was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. He is a fellow and former president of AEESP and an associate editor of the American Chemical Society journal Environmental Science and Technology.

In 2012, Alvarez was awarded the Athalie Richardson Irvine Clarke Prize for “excellence in water research” by the National Water Research Institute. He is a fellow of the American Academy for the Advancement of Sciences, the American Society of Civil Engineers, the International Water Association and the Water Environment Federation.

Alvarez’s latest award is named for Perry McCarty, the Silas H. Palmer Professor Emeritus of Environmental Engineering and Science at Stanford University.

– Patrick Kurp is a science writer in the George R. Brown School of Engineering.