David A. Sabatini

David A. Sabatini
David A. Sabatini (BS 81)
David Ross Boyd Professor & Sun Oil Company Endowed Chair of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science
University of Oklahoma

CEEAA Distinguished Alumni Award, 2012

For outstanding leadership and pioneering contributions in the field of hazardous waste remediation using surfactants and the development of appropriate and sustainable technologies for addressing water quality issues in remote villages of developing countries.

Biography

David Sabatini is the David Ross Boyd Professor and Sun Oil Company Endowed Chair of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science at the University of Oklahoma, where he is also the Director of the Water Technologies for Emerging Regions (WaTER) Center.  His research focuses on sustainable drinking water systems for developing countries such as Cambodia and Ethiopia, surfactant-based environmental and biofuel technologies, and understanding/characterizing contaminant fate and transport in the environment. 

Sabatini is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Contaminant Hydrology and Editorial Board member of theJournal of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Development  and has coauthored or coedited four books and more than 160 refereed journal publications. Recent awards include the Water Environment Federation Award of Merit for Work in Developing Countries (2011) and the Oklahoma Medal for Excellence in Teaching from the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence (2010). In 1997-98, he was a Senior Fulbright Scholar at the Universitaet Tuebingen, Germany.

After graduating from Illinois, Sabatini briefly worked for the Illinois Central Gulf Railroad (Chicago and Memphis). He completed his M.S. at Memphis in 1985, his Ph.D. at Iowa State in 1989, and joined Oklahoma University in 1989.

He and Frances, his wife of 27 years, live in Norman, Okla., as do their children, Caleb and Peggy.