A Virginia Tech professor with the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech and renowned expert on water infrastructure will headline a Jan. 27 press briefing on water quality and safety. Sponsored by the American Chemical Society (ACS), the 9:30 a.m. (Eastern Time) event will take place at the National Press Building, Broadcast Center (4th floor).
Marc Edwards, the Charles P. Lunsford Professor with the Virginia Tech department of civil and environmental engineering, along with chemists and other scientists from the ACS will assess local and world water problems -- ranging from cleanliness to adequate supplies to terrorism. The webcast will be accessible at www.visualwebcaster.com/american-chemical-society. Offsite reporters can ask questions during the briefing via e-mail.
Additional participants include:
- Thomas Lane, president of the ACS;
- Margaret Cavanaugh, moderator, National Science Foundation, familiar with water issues around the country;
- William Ball, Johns Hopkins University, Engineers Without Borders and specialist in problems of the Chesapeake Bay; and
- Charles Haas, Drexel University, involved with government and academic effort to keep America's water supply safe from terrorist attacks.
Winner of the National Science Foundation Presidential Faculty Fellowship, Edwards was dubbed the “Plumbing Professor” by Time magazine for his internationally recognized expertise on drinking water, concentrates in environmental and water resources engineering. Recently he teamed with another College of Engineering faculty member to establish the Virginia Tech Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science (ICTAS) Center of Excellence (ICE) in Sustainable Water Infrastructure Management (SWIM) in Blacksburg, Va.
The world’s largest scientific society, the American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
The College of Engineering at Virginia Tech is internationally recognized for its excellence in 14 engineering disciplines and computer science. The college’s 5,700 undergraduates benefit from an innovative curriculum that provides a “hands-on, minds-on” approach to engineering education, complementing classroom instruction with two unique design-and-build facilities and a strong Cooperative Education Program. With more than 50 research centers and numerous laboratories, the college offers its 1,800 graduate students opportunities in advanced fields of study such as biomedical engineering, state-of-the-art microelectronics, and nanotechnology. Virginia Tech, the most comprehensive university in Virginia, is dedicated to quality, innovation, and results to the commonwealth, the nation and the world.