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Dr. Kebreab Ghebremichael, a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Patel College of Global Sustainability, has a courtesy appointment at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at USF. Recently he received the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship for education and research project in Ghana. His expertise in water and wastewater treatment, particularly in the development of low cost and appropriate technologies. Dr Ghebremichael has published one book, 4 book chapters and more than 20 peer reviewed journal papers. He has more than 20 years of teaching and research experience, developed and taught several graduate and undergraduate courses in Civil and Environmental Engineering and Sustainability and supervised several PhD and MS students. Before joining USF, Dr. Ghebremichael worked at UNESCO-IHE (prestigious institute for water education) in the Netherlands and in Eritrea and has gained global experience in water resources, water and wastewater treatment challenges and solution through multiple international projects in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe.
Dr. Ghebremichael Directs the Sustainable Water Concentration in the MA program in Global Sustainability and he served as the Director of the Office of Sustainability that helped USF achieve several national and international recognitions. Dr. Ghebremichael holds a PhD in Water Resources Engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden and an MSc in Water Engineering from the University of New South Wales in Australia.
Courses
Research
Globally close to 1 billion people do not have access to safe drinking water and more than 2.6 billion lack appropriate sanitation, mostly in developing countries. This has led to widespread challenges of public health and environmental pollution. Our research focuses on the development of appropriate and low cost technologies relevant to communities that do not have direct access to municipal services.
Focus Areas
Biosand Filtration
Advance the design and performance of biosand filter. This research looks at significantly improving the performance of the conventional biosand filter and makes it a complete treatment system to remove not only the common contaminants (solids and pathogens) but also specific ones such as fluoride, arsenic and other metals. This research focuses on modifying the surface characteristics of the filter media (based on coating using aluminum oxide or iron oxide).
Natural Materials for Water Treatment
This research focusses on developing biomaterials or naturally available resources for water and wastewater treatment. It focusses on purifying the bio-coagulants from plant seeds for turbidity and pathogen removal and as a filter aid in sand filtration systems. The research on natural materials also looks at low cost adsorbents form natural or waste resources for inorganic contaminants removal such as fluoride, arsenic, chromium.
Onsite Wastewater Treatment for Reuse
In the US about 25% of domestic wastewater is treated in onsite treatment systems (mainly septic tanks), which are not efficient at removing nitrogen and pathogens, making them a risk to public health and the environment. This research looks at developing new processes for effective nutrient and pathogen removal form onsite systems and maximize the reuse potential of wastewater locally.
