Daniel Giammar, PhD, has been named the Walter E. Browne Professor in Environmental Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. He was installed Dec. 1.
Giammar, who was promoted to professor Sept. 15, has been on the faculty in the Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science since 2002.
His research focuses on chemical reactions that affect the fate and transport of heavy metals and radionuclides in natural and engineered aquatic systems. His recent work investigated biogeochemical processes for remediation of uranium-contaminated environments, water treatment processes for chromium and arsenic removal, control of lead corrosion and geologic carbon sequestration.
Most recently, he received a $1.27 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to study the potential for fractured basalt, a type of rock that is rich in minerals that can trap injected carbon dioxide in solid carbonate minerals. The research is in collaboration with the university’s Consortium for Clean Coal Utilization.
Giammar has received the Environmental Engineering Student Association’s Professor of the Year Award and the Association of Graduate Engineering Students “Big Fish” Mentor of the Year Award. In 2006, he received one of the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Awards. The Water Research Foundation, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have funded Giammar’s research. He also is a member of the Institute for Materials Science and Engineering and the Environmental Studies Program.
Giammar teaches “Introduction to Energy, Environmental and Chemical Engineering,” “Environmental Engineering Laboratory” and “Physical and Chemical Processes for Water and Wastewater Treatment.” He has a secondary appointment in Earth & Planetary Sciences in Arts & Sciences.
“Dan is a wonderful colleague and a great team player,” said Pratim Biswas, PhD, the Lucy and Stanley Lopata Professor and chair of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering. “He is one of the first faculty members I hired after joining Washington University, and he has helped in the development of a very strong environmental engineering science effort. He is one of the most organized individuals I have worked with, and it is a pleasure to collaborate on activities with him. His research in the water quality area is receiving national and international recognition. He is a fabulous educator, researcher and mentor.”
Prior to joining Washington University, Giammar was a research associate in geosciences at Princeton University. He also spent a year as the William R. Kenan Jr. Visiting Professor for Distinguished Teaching at Princeton in 2012-13. He earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and master’s and doctoral degrees in environmental engineering science at California Institute of Technology.
Giammar is active in environmental engineering research and education at the university and at the national level. He has served on national committees of the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors and has been an invited member of National Science Foundation committees on sustainable engineering. In January 2014, he was named associate editor of the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
About Walter E. Browne
Walter E. Browne earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Washington University in 1921. A native of Alton, Ill., Browne worked at Laclede Steel Co. while studying at Washington University to pay tuition and to support his family. After earning his degree, he worked as an assistant city engineer in Alton before moving to Milwaukee, where he was a self-employed consulting engineer for the rest of his professional life. He later moved back to Godfrey, Ill., where he died in 1990. He left more than 1,000 acres of Illinois farmland to the School of Engineering & Applied Science.
Browne was a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Society of Professional Engineers and the Milwaukee Astronomical Society.
About the School of Engineering & Applied Science
The School of Engineering & Applied Science focuses intellectual efforts through a new convergence paradigm and builds on strengths, particularly as applied to medicine and health, energy and environment, entrepreneurship and security.
With 91 tenured/tenure-track and 40 additional full-time faculty, 1,300 undergraduate students, more than 900 graduate students and more than 23,000 alumni, we are working to leverage our partnerships with academic and industry partners — across disciplines and across the world — to contribute to solving the greatest global challenges of the 21st century.