NWRI Fellowship Program
The NWRI Fellowship program awards funds to graduate students who are conducting water research in the United States. To be eligible, students must be accepted and enrolled in an US-based graduate program. Fellowships are underwritten by the American Membrane Technology Association, the Southern California Salinity Coalition, and NWRI. To read Fellowship reports, follow the link in each student's profile.
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NWRI Member Agency Fellowship
This fellowship funds research that supports NWRI's mission of developing and enhancing drinking water supplies and water resources.
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NWRI/SCSC Fellowship
The NWRI-Southern California Salinity Coalition (SCSC) Fellowship supports research that addresses the critical need to remove or reduce salts from water supplies and to preserve water resources in Southern California. Such research includes institutional and regulatory issues, economics of reducing salinity, regional and watershed planning solutions, and public education, outreach, and awareness. Visit the SCSC website for more information.
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NWRI/AMTA Fellowship for Membrane Technology
The NWRI/AMTA Fellowship supports research to advance membrane technologies in the water, wastewater, or water reuse industries. Research must be consistent with American Membrane Technology Association's vision of "Solving water supply and quality issues through the widespread application of membrane technology." The fellowship assists two students for two years.
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Fellowship Recipients (2020-2024)
NWRI/AMTA 2024 Fellow, Ali Naderi Beni, Purdue University
Beni's research, "Experimental Batch Counterflow Reverse Osmosis for Brine Concentration," focuses on modeling high-recovery/high-salinity membrane-based desalination technologies to reduce effects of brine.
NWRI/SCSC 2024 Fellow, Sitao Liu, University of California, Riverside
Liu's research project titled, “Development of an Enhanced Vacuum UV system for PFAS Destruction in Brine Concentrate: Harnessing the Promotive Effects of Salinity,” aims to use the common brine anions to accelerate PFAS degradation under UV irradiation.
NWRI 2024 Fellow, Samantha Mohney, George Mason University
Mohney's research, titled “Toxic Benthic Cyanobacteria as an Emerging Environmental and Public Health Threat” focuses on characterizing the factors driving toxin-producing benthic cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (cHABs) in the Potomac River Basin.
NWRI 2024 Fellow
Harsh Patel, University of Michigan
Patel's project, titled “ Anion-Exchange Membranes with Tunable Hydrophobicity for the Selective Removal of Nitrate from Contaminated Brackish Groundwater,” aims to investigate the thermodynamic and transport behavior of mixed anionic contaminants in charged membranes.
NWRI 2024 Fellow, Xinyi Wang,
University of California, Los Angeles
Wang's paper, "Targeted Extraction of Valuable Intermediate Products and Clean Water from Municipal Wastewater using Electroactive Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactors," describes a mixed matrix membrane to extract phosphate from wastewater and use less energy.
NWRI 2023 Fellow, Alma Bartholow
University of California, Berkeley
Bartholow's  project is titled, “Advanced Treated Wastewater in Distributions Systems: Biostability and Biofiltration,”aims to tackle the unique microbial challenges of advanced treated wastewater in distribution systems. 
NWRI/AMTA 2023 Fellow, Kieran Fung, University of Colorado at Boulder
Kieran's paper, "Acoustic Streaming Pneumatic Bubble Structures for Real-Time Membrane Cleaning in a Crossflow Filtration Water Purification System" aims to develop a novel membrane cleaning mechanism with in-situ and on-demand antifouling capabilities. ​
NWRI/AMTA 2023 Fellow, Aron Griffin, Colorado School of Mines
Griffin's paper, “A Comprehensive Evaluation of the Importance of Steric and Donnan Exclusion Mechanisms for the Rejection of Per-and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances by High Pressure Membranes” advances technologies for the destruction of PFAS.
NWRI 2023 Fellow, Emma Payne,
University of Colorado, Boulder
Payne's research project titled, “Tailoring UV Wavelengths in UV Advanced Oxidation to Improve Water Reuse” focuses on UV advanced oxidation and how innovations in UV can improve the field of water treatment and water reuse.
NWRI/SCSC 2023 Fellow, Jishan Wu
University of California, Los Angeles
Wu's project titled, “Ultra-high pressure RO membranes for the Lowest Cost and Energy Approach to Achieve Minimum Liquid Discharge” talks about pioneering advancements in ultra-high pressure reverse osmosis for minimum/zero liquid discharge.
NWRI 2022 Fellow, Daniel Leontieff
Texas State University
Leontieff's research explored new technologies for water treatment and water reuse in his project titled, "Direct Online Monitoring of Direct Potable Reuse Systems."
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NWRI/AMTA 2022 Fellow Kian Lopez
University of Colorado, Boulder
Lopez's research, "Electrochemical characterization and oxidation methods to mitigate failure mechanisms in pressure-driven membrane distillation for applications in water reuse" intends to lay a foundation for using novel membrane processes for water reuse.
NWRI/AMTA 2022 Fellow Aubrey Quigley, University of Texas at Austin
Quigley's 2022 work addressed cation exchange membranes for use in bipolar electrodialysis for the recovery of lithium, titled "Lithium brine purification and electrochemical conversion via selective bipolar membrane electrodialysis."
NWRI 2022 Fellow Alyssa Schubert
University of Michigan
Schubert's project, "Decisions, Decisions: An Assessment of Drinking Water Decision Making Drivers and their Implications for Policy" investigated the drivers of decision-making in distributed drinking water systems and their impact on decision outcomes.
NWRI/AMTA 2021 Fellow Weiliang Bai
University of Texas at Austin
Bai's project is titled "Setting up a comprehensive Omics platform for detecting biofouling in reverse osmosis seawater desalination plants."
NWRI/AMTA 2021 Fellow Jose Diaz
University of Michigan
Diaz's project was titled "Ion sorption and transport in novel highly charged and tunable ion exchange membranes contacted with non-ideal electrolyte solutions."
NWRI 2021 Fellow Yusi Li
Arizona State University
Li's 2021 project is titled "Management of inland desalination brackish water concentrates with pervaporation." It presents a novel polymer membrane for desalination.
NWRI 2021 Fellow
Thomas Morales, San Diego State University
Morales' project titled "Persistence and removal of emerging chemical in sunlight-exposed wastewater effluent," evaluates the fate of trace organics in treated wastewater under sunlight, with and without bacteria.
NWRI/SCSC 2021 Fellow Xinyu Tang
University of California, Riverside
Tang's project, titled "A novel treatment method for brackish water reverse ososis brine to achieve higher water recovery and resource recovery," addreses new treatment methods for brine.
NWRI/SCSC 2020 Fellow
Mackenzie Anderson, UCLA
Anderson's research, "Toward a mechanistic understanding of the water purification potential of non-polyamide materials," focused on materials for chemically tolerant and selective membranes as well as coatings for the reduction of mineral scale on desalination membranes.
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NWRI/AMTA 2020 Fellow, Yousuf Bootwala, Georgia Inst. of Tech.
Bootawala's research, "Evaluating and tuning the ion transport and selectivity through 2D titanium carbide membranes," focused on improving 2D titanium carbide membranes for applications in water treatment as well as for resource recovery.
NWRI 2020 Fellow, Yanghua Duan
University of California, Berkeley
Duan’s research, "Electrochemical advanced oxidation for urban stormwater treatment and recharge," examined the feasibility of incorporating electrochemical advanced oxidation into dry well systems to treat and recharge stormwater runoff.
NWRI/WateReuse 2020 Fellow
Hannah Greenwald, UC Berkeley
Greenwald's research, "Transitioning to direct potable reuse: microbial impacts in distribution systems," focused on how the move to direct potable reuse will affect microorganisms in drinking water distribution systems.
NWRI 2020 Fellow, Wei-Cheng Hung
University of California Los Angeles
Hung's research, "Antibiotic an heavy metal driven co-selection of antibiotic resistance in freshwater microcosms," focused on the prevalence, persistence, and effects of heavy metal co-selection on antibiotic resistance in the environment.
NWRI/AMTA 2020 Fellow Stephanie Ribet, Northwestern University
Ribet worked on tailoring membranes to recover toxins including nutrients and heavy metals in her research, "Multifunctional nanocomposite membrane for nutrient recovery," focusing on the structure of membranes to optimize their performance.
NWRI/BioLargo 2020 Fellow Lorianne Shultz, University of Central Florida
Schultz's 2020 research, "Chlorine-stable heterogeneous catalysts for the remediation of stubborn water pollutants," focused on synthesizing heterogenous catalysts that are resistant to chlorine poisoning for the remediation of pharmaceuticals and personal care products in water.