WEP IUCRC - Key Persons
Dave Marsh serves as the Managing Director for the Water Equipment & Policy Research Center (WEP). His responsibilities include:
Managing WEP I/UCRC operations
WEP Marketing
WEP Member Support
Supporting student researchers in engaging with members and pursuing employment opportunities
Meeting Planning and execution including selecting speakers and panel participants.
Dave has a history of serving in marketing management positions including:
Culligan International - Director of Marketing
US Filter - Director of Marketing
Johnson Controls - Director of Marketing, Battery Division
Rockwell international - Strategic Communications Supervisor
Young & Rubicam - Vice President, Director of Industrial Clients
Dave also served as an adjunct professor, teaching marketing courses at Marquette University, and has been widely published in Water Industry Trade publications.
Dave earned a bachelor's degree in advertising management from Michigan State University and an MBA in marketing from the University of Pittsburgh.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor of Civil
Dr. Anthony Parolari is an Assistant Professor of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering at Marquette University. His research focuses on development of quantitative models that integrate hydro-climatic variability with surface hydrological and ecological processes. These models inform solutions to ecological engineering problems such as agricultural water and nutrient management, design and control of stormwater infrastructure, and mitigation of extreme drought impacts.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor
- Fellow
Dr. Brooke Mayer is an Assistant Professor and Nelson Faculty Fellow in the Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering at Marquette University. Dr. Mayer's research focuses on the design and assessment of more sustainable water and wastewater treatment technologies that are able to simultaneously mitigate the risks posed by microbial and chemical contaminants. Her work deals with providing safe drinking water through the removal and inactivation of pathogens as well as harmful chemicals such as metals and disinfection byproduct precursors. She also specializes in efforts to remove and recover phosphorus from wastes for reuse as a valuable fertilizer product. Dr. Mayer earned her B.S. (2004), M.S. (2006), and Ph.D. (2008) from Arizona State University.
Dr. Daniel H. Zitomer, P.E. is a Professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering and director of the Water Quality Center at Marquette University. Dr. Zitomer specializes in wastewater treatment and anaerobic biotechnology. He has more than 16 years of experience consulting with entities such as Packaging Corporation of America, United Water Services, CH2M Hill, and others. Dr. Zitomer has authored or co-authored more than 50 journal articles, proceedings papers and book chapters. His research focuses on the relationship between microbial community structure and the function of engineered bioprocesses for wastewater purification. Results have been implemented in full scale. For example, his anaerobic digestion work with the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District has help increase biomethane and renewable energy production at wastewater reclamation facilities, and his work in microbial community optimization has resulted in six provision patents and patent applications. He received the 2008 Gordon Maskew Fair Distinguished Engineering Educator Medal from the Water Environment Federation for outstanding service in engineering education. He presently teaches graduate classes on anaerobic biotechnology, biological wastewater treatment and environmental chemistry, and has performed research for the US Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District, State of Wisconsin and others.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor in Department of Material Science
Dr. Junjie Niu is an Assistant Professor in Department of Material Science and Engineering at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Before joining in UWM, Dr. Niu worked as a Postdoc Associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 2011 to 2014. He also did interdisciplinary research as a Postdoc Associate at the Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) from 2009 to 2011. Dr. Niu's interdisciplinary research includes understanding fundamental science in physics/chemistry/mechanics, and engineering nanomaterials in applications of energy storage, energy-water nexus and biomedicine. The areas include but not limited to:
• Lithium-ion and Lithium-sulfur/metal batteries for next-generation EVs
• Water-energy nexus: self-cleaning, water purification and catalysis
• In-situ TEM study on phase transformation of a single nano-device
• Intracellular single molecular detection
Dr. Niu has published over 70 papers in peer-reviewed journals including 3 Nature series journals and filed over 3 US patents. He currently serves as Associate Editor of RSC Advances.
Job Titles:
- Facility Manager of the UWM Water Technology Accelerator
Dr. Marcia Silva is a Researcher and a Facility Manager of the UWM Water Technology Accelerator (WaTA). She is also an Adjunct Professor with the School of Freshwater Sciences and with the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Dr. Silva has more than 20 years of industrial and academic experience. She obtained a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from UWM in 2013 and holds a M.S. in Environmental Engineering (2006) from UWM and a B.S. in Food Engineering (2004) from University of the Sinos Valey, Brazil.
Dr. Silva's most recent research lies on the interface of Environmental Engineering and Materials Science, focusing on the research, development, fabrication, and testing of novel filtration media for water purification by utilizing nanotechnology and biotechnology. Her research interests also include the understanding of the mechanisms of association of microbial and chemical pollutants to particles, microbial biofilms, and fate and transport of pollutants in waterways. Dr. Silva's current research effort also comprises the development of sensors for bacteria detection in environmental and medical samples and quantification of suspended solids in wastewater.
Dr. Walter McDonald is an Assistant Professor in the Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering department at Marquette University. Dr. McDonald obtained a PhD in Civil Engineering from Virginia Tech in 2016 and holds a MS in Civil Engineering (2012) from Texas A&M University and a BS in Civil Engineering (2010) from Texas Tech University. His research is focused on environmental monitoring, urban stormwater management, and statistical hydrology. Specific projects include improved methods of parameterization in flood frequency analysis, analyzing time-based stormwater sampling strategies, and modeling real-time controls for stormwater systems.
Dr. Yin Wang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. He received his B.S. in Environmental Sciences at the Peking University in 2008, and M.S. and Ph.D. in Energy, Environmental, and Chemical Engineering at the Washington University in St. Louis in 2011 and 2012, respectively. Before joining UWM in 2014, he was a postdoc research associate in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Wang's major research mission is to apply chemistry principles to develop innovative and sustainable solutions for water-related grand challenges. Some specific focuses include environmental applications of advanced materials, water supply and treatment, wastewater treatment and resource recovery, and environmental interfacial chemistry.
Nathan P. Salowitz received the B.S. degree in engineering mechanics from the University of Wisconsin - Madison in 2001 and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in aeronautics and astronautics from Stanford University in 2006 and 2013, respectively.
From 2003 to 2005 he was a Structural Analysis Engineer with The Boeing Company. From 2013 to 2014 he was a postdoctoral Engineering Research Associate at Stanford University. Since 2014 he has been an Assistant Professor with the Mechanical Engineering Department with Adjunct Professor appointments in the Electrical Engineering and Civil and Environmental Engineering departments at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. He has more than 16 publications and is currently pursuing research in Intelligent Materials and Structural Health Monitoring with particular interests in sensor design, mass sensor deployment, wireless communication, and the interaction of sensors and structures.
Prof. Salowitz is a member of ASME and IEEE with significant involvement in the Structural Health Monitoring community.
Job Titles:
- Wisconsin Distinguished Professor
Dr. Rohatgi currently serves as a Wisconsin Distinguished Professor and the Director of the UWM Composite Center at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He serves on committees of the governments of the United States and India in the areas of materials in the automotive, energy, and environmental sectors. His research has been supported by that National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Naval Research and several major corporations. Dr. Rohatgi has coauthored eleven books and over 400 scientific papers. He has 20 U.S. patents and has received numerous awards for excellence in research.
Education:
Sc.D., Materials Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1964
M.S., Materials Science and Engineering, MIT, 1963
B.S., Metallurgical Engineering, Banaras University, 1961
Honors and Awards:
Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (2014)
Received the Engineers and Scientists of Milwaukee Engineer of the Year Award (2011)
Honorary Medal from Motor Transport Institute, Warsaw, Poland (2006)
Hall Heroult Scientific Merit Award by American Foundrymens Society (2000) / UWM Foundation Distinguished Service Award for Distinguished Public Service (1995)
Awarded the Ford/Briggs and Stratton Professorship (1991)
Award for best work in light metals from American Foundrymen's Society (1969)
Job Titles:
- Professor of Electrical Engineering
Ronald A. Coutu, Jr. is a Professor of Electrical Engineering and the V. Clayton Lafferty Endowed Chair in Micro-Sensor Devices and Smart Sensor Systems at Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI. He received his B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1993, his M.S. in electrical engineering from the California Polytechnic State University (CalPoly) in San Luis Obispo in 1995 and his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) in 2004. In 2009, he retired from active duty Air Force after serving honorably for 25 years. He is a California registered Professional Engineer in electrical engineering and a Senior Member of the IEEE and SPIE. He is also a Life Member of Tau Beta Pi and Eta Kappa Nu. His current research interests include microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), smart sensors, device fabrication, micro-electrical contacts and phase-change materials. He is also very interested in energy harvesting, renewable energy, micro-grids and energy storage.