Prof Irene Lo has become the first Hong Kong member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, elected for the impact of her research and practical advances in solving environmental challenges. She talks to In Focus about her work in decontamination and outlook on engineering When Prof Irene Lo heard the news that she had been elected an Academician in the Technical and Environmental Sciences branch of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, her initial reaction was: “Not me?!” The Civil and Environmental Engineering professor was equally surprised and delighted to find she had become the first Hong Kong scholar to receive the honor from the august body, which comprises over 1,500 top scientists, researchers, philosophers and artists from Europe, Asia and the US, and includes 29 Nobel Laureates. However, Prof Lo has certainly earned her place among the Academy’s members after more than two decades of high achievement and technological innovation at the School of Engineering. Her focus over this time has been clean-up solutions to the major environmental problem of contaminated soil, sediment and water, and her influence has been global in both academic and professional engineering worlds. “I see a problem in reality. Then I look for the root cause and how to solve it,” Prof Lo explained. “I start with work in the laboratory and gradually move to a full site test of the technology. Publications are important but not my ultimate goal. For every piece of research I do, I must think of the application. The most exciting part is when you see the technology actually working. There is a real sense of discovery.” Prof Lo was one of the early exponents of environmental engineering as it expanded from sanitary engineering (mainly issues related to water and wastewater) into a wide-ranging university discipline in the 1980s. She was attracted by the scope of the subject, which involved integration of physics, chemistry and biology – all subjects she was good at and enjoyed from her time at Shau Kei Wan Government Secondary School in Hong Kong onward. Environmental engineering’s potential to improve the quality of people’s lives was another significant draw. Joining HKUST in 1992 as a junior faculty member, Prof Lo has gone on to bring fresh dimensions to research and applications for water, soil, and solid waste pollution control. During sabbatical leave in 1999 at the Technical University of Denmark, she had the opportunity to collaborate with Prof Peter Kjeldsen, another leading figure in groundwater and soil remediation, and seek ways to bring their scientific findings related to permeable reactive barrier technology to fruition in the outside world. “It worked in the lab but we needed to show people it worked in the field to have real impact,” she said. MS and PhD, University of Texas at Austin, 1990 and 1992 Fellow of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (HKIE), 2009 Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), 2009 Research interests: include remediation technology for contaminated soils and sludge; solidification/stabilization of contaminated marine mud/sediment/ soils for beneficial reuse; bioremediation of sediment for odor suppression and organic biodegradation; chemical reduction of chlorinated hydrocarbons and reducible inorganic compounds by permeable reactive barriers; nanomaterials for water and industrial wastewater treatment; life cycle environmental assessment of materials Professional awards: include ASCE James Croes Medal, 2004 (first Chinese principal investigator to win since 1912); ASCE Samuel Arnold Greeley Award, 2007; ASCE Wesley W Horner Award, 2009; ASCE EWRI Best Practice-Oriented Paper Award, 2012; Research Excellence Award, School of Engineering, HKUST, 2013 Teaching awards: include Michael G Gale Medal for Distinguished Teaching, HKUST, 2006; Distinguished Teaching Award, School of Engineering, HKUST, 2007 Firmly Grounded Achievement Freeing the Earth 13 In Focus
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