Vinka Craver Receives the Rudolph Hering Medal.
The Environmental and Water Resources Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) awards to Professor Craver the prestigious Rudolph Hering Medal for her paper "Ceramic Filters Impregnated with Silver Nanoparticles for Point-of-Use Water Treatment in Rural Guatemala." The paper, co-authored by Craver (URI), as well Kalman and Smith from the University of Virginia, appeared in the June 2011 issue of the ASCE Journal of Environmental Engineering.
The Rudolph Hering Medal was instituted and endowed in 1924 by the Sanitary Engineering Division (now the Environmental and Water Resources Institute) of the American Society of civil Engineers, in honor of Rudolph Hering, past Vice President of the Society. According to ASCE, "the Medal is awarded to the author, or authors, of the paper which contains the most valuable contribution to the increase of knowledge in, and to the advancement of, the environmental branch of the engineering profession."
Craver along with her co-authors, conducted laboratory and field testing and evaluation of the effectivensess and social acceptability of the filters. Field studies took place in the Guatemalan highland community of San Mateo Ixtatán. Overall, the findings of this study suggest that locally manufactured ceramic filters can significantly improve the microbiological quality of water when used as a point-of-use water-treatment technology.
The Environmental and Water Resources Institute, in making the decision to award the Medal to Craver and her co-authors, particularly noted their research findings to suppor the effectiveness of locally manufactured ceramic filters.
The paper is based on research supported by the Environmental Sustainability Program of the U.S. National Science Foundation.
