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Dr. Gerald E. Speitel
STAR Researcher Receives Best Paper Award
(September, 2002) Gerald E. Speitel, National Center for Environmental Research Science to Achieve Results (STAR) grantee, received a 2002 Best Paper Award from the Water Science and Technology Division of the American Water Works Association 
. These awards are given annually to the author of the best paper on drinking water published in the "Journal AWWA." Dr. Speitel was honored for a paper on his work that applies advanced oxidation processes in drinking-water treatment, using ozone and hydrogen peroxide with ultraviolet light and hydrogen peroxide, followed by biological methods.
Dr. Speitel has been an EPA STAR researcher since late 1997. The goal of his STAR grant, which is now being wrapped up, is to develop a drinking-water treatment process combining biodegrading and adsorptive elements which lower costs and produce more reliable results. The process uses organic chemicals as the biodegrading agents and activated carbon to adsorb nondegradable materials. While the focus of Dr. Speitel's research is on the treatment of drinking water, he notes that the findings could also be useful in industrial wastewater treatment processes for water contaminated with organic chemicals. For more information on Dr. Speitel's research, visit a write-up of his research under Role of Microbial Metabolism and Cometabolism in Treating Mixtures of Biodegradable and Nonbiodegradable Chemicals in Granular Activated Carbon Columns.
Professor Speitel received his Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1985 and joined the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin in 1988.
Other honors received by Dr. Speitel include the Best of Sessions Award for a paper presented at the 1999 annual meeting of the American Society of Civil Engineers; the Faculty Excellence Award in the College of Engineering at the University of Texas (1990); and the Bernard G. Greenberg Award for excellence in doctoral research at the University of North Carolina (1986).
Additional information on the STAR program can be found at the National Center for Environmental Research. For more information, contact Estella Waldman at Waldman.Estella@epa.gov.