Leon Downing, PhD, PE, is an Associate Vice President at Black & Veatch.  He is the Global Practice Leader for Nutrient Removal and Recovery, as well as the Director of Innovation for Treatment Solutions. 

 

A licensed professional engineer in Texas, Downing is based in Madison, Wisconsin.  He has focused his career on developing and implementing innovative technologies at water resource recovery facilities (WRRFs) that remove nutrients from wastewater and use less energy.  He has experience on over 50 WRRFs from planning to design to startup and optimization. 

 

In addition to work on facilities, Downing has led research on five water research foundation (WRF) projects, two department of energy (DOE) projects, and has been an author on 21 peer-reviewed research journal articles. He is an adjunct professor at the University of Wisconsin, where he teaches nutrient removal and process modeling. 

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Downing has a BS in Civil and Environmental Engineering from University of Wisconsin-Platteville, and an MS and PhD in Environmental Engineering from the University of Notre Dame.