Michael Pennino is a NatureNet Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Princeton University. Michael received his PhD in 2014 in Biogeochemistry from the MEES Department at the University of Maryland and his BA in Chemistry and Biology from Oberlin College. Michael’s doctoral research focused on the impacts of urban infrastructure on nitrogen and carbon biogeochemistry in streams and estuaries. At Princeton he is beginning to collaborate with municipal greening initiatives across the Northeast to examine how socially-focused urban green infrastructure, implemented at the watershed level, can impact both water and social quality.

Vahid Razaviarani is a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Princeton University. Vahid received his Ph.D. from the University of Alberta, Canada, where his research focused on elucidating the reactor performance and stability, maximum feasible loading, microbial population dynamics and modeling of anaerobic co-digestion of municipal wastewater sludge with organic waste streams. At Princeton, in Biogeochemistry Research Group, Vahid is investigating the feasibility of combined biological treatment of NOx emission and wastewater from the coal-fired power plant process using the hollow fiber membrane bioreactor. Also, he is looking at the biodegradation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) compounds applying Feammox process. Kinetics of denitrification process using acclimated biomass with/without pre-oxidized (Fenton) industrial wastewater is also under investigation.

Jinyi Ge is a visiting Ph.D. student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Princeton University. Her research focuses in China are on the kinetics of aerobic composting, which is carried out in the Laboratory of Biomass & Bioprocessing Engineering at China Agricultural University. At present, she is working on investigating biodegradation of Trichloroethylene (TCE) and Tetrachloroethylene (PCE) by Feammox process, as well as biodegradation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) compounds.

Jose Casas de Pedro is a Professor of Chemical Engineering at Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain. He is currently a visiting scholar at Princeton University. His background focuses on the development of catalytic process and process intensification for wastewater treatment.

Juan Zazo is Associate Professor in Chemical Engineering at Universidad Autonoma de Madrid (Spain). His research focuses on the treatment of industrial wastewater by advanced oxidation processes, assessing the role of the operational conditions and LED’s on the intensification of those technologies. In the CEE Department, he collaborates with Dr. Razaviarani on the pretreatment of coking wastewater using Fenton Reagent and its coupling with biological NOX reduction from a coal fired-power plant.