Kwanrawee Joy Sirikanchana

CEEAA Young Alumni Achievement Award, 2016

For an exemplary academic background and proven leadership in science and engineering focused on solving water pollution problems with technical excellence, originality and practicality; and for outstanding contributions to research in the areas of wastewater, drinking water and recreational water pollution with the goal of identifying contamination sources to solve Thailand’s water pollution problem.

Biography

Kwanrawee Joy Sirikanchana graduated first in her undergraduate class at Chulalongkorn University, Thailand. She came to the U.S. for postgraduate studies, focusing both her master’s thesis and her doctoral dissertation on the efficacy of known water treatments on emerging microbiological threats to the water supply. The results of her work helped the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency assess new microbial candidates for drinking water regulation. Her outstanding dissertation later won the prize in the Thailand Thesis Award, given by the National Research Council of Thailand. Sirikanchana completed her postdoctoral training at the University of California, Davis, where she helped develop a better monitoring method to identify sources of fecal pollution in recreational coastal and estuarine water.

Currently, Sirikanchana is conducting research and advising graduate students at the Chulabhorn Research Institute. Her research focuses on utilizing microorganisms to track sources of fecal pollution in Thailand in order to resolve water pollution problems. She recently received the Willie Grabow Young Investigator Award from the International Water Association (IWA) in London. She was also awarded the New Face in Civil Engineering honor from the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2009.

Sirikanchana resides in Bangkok with her husband, Win, and her two children, Serene and Sira.

Text of Sirikanchana's speech.