February 18, 2019
Parameswaran named Keystone Research Scholar
Prathap Parameswaran, assistant professor of civil engineering at Kansas State University, has been named a Steve Hsu Keystone Research Faculty Scholar by the Carl R. Ice College of Engineering.
Keystone Research Scholars receive a three-year appointment that includes additional financial support for assistants, travel, equipment, summer salary, etc. The award encourages the college's best professors to catapult their intellectual activities to the highest levels of achievement through excellence in teaching, research and collaborative working relationships within the college and across the university.
The award is funded by Steve Hsu, 1959 master's degree graduate of K-State in mechanical engineering, and former chairman of the family shipping company, Oak Maritime Group, Hong Kong, China.
Parameswaran joined the civil engineering faculty at K-State in 2015. His research interests pertain to the capture and reuse of energy and resources at the waste-energy-water nexus. Achieving this will include a focus on anaerobic membrane bioreactors and anaerobic digestion for total resource recovery; pretreatment technologies for bioprocessing of wastes and biomass; and microbial electrochemical cells for valuable products generation such as electric power, hydrogen gas, advanced oxidation products and valuable organic chemicals at the cathode.
He holds one patent on microbial electrochemical cells, which he co-invented with his collaborators, and has received several academic honors including the Young Investigator award from the American Society of Microbiology in 2012. He is currently the lead investigator on projects funded by the National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Agricultural and private industry as well as co-personal investigator on multiple other projects funded by the National Science Foundation.