The Viva committee: James Walmsley (left), Fionnuala Murphy (top right) and Katherine Steele (bottom right). Isabel in the small window on the right corner.
Isabel, from our Bangor University team, successfully defended her PhD thesis at her Viva on the 16th November 2021, passing with minor corrections.
Her thesis is entitled “Environmental impacts in the water-energy nexus: quantification and mitigation in the food and drink sector”.
Using Life Cycle Assessment methodology, the environmental benefits (and few trade-offs) of water and energy efficiency measures are identified, such as of heat recovery from commercial kitchen drains or from process and waste streams in distilleries. Three papers have been published or accepted and two more are in planning. The calculator (downloadable here) to support kitchens in realising drain water heat recovery is also part of her dissertation.
Raising the glasses post-viva, from left to right: Prysor, Richard, Isabel, Djordje, Aisha, Nathan and Annum.
Isabel is grateful for the possibility to conduct her research in the Dŵr Uisce project: “I had the pleasure to do my PhD surrounded by incredibly supportive and encouraging colleagues in Bangor and Dublin, including an outstanding supervision by Prysor and Dave. Now, I’m looking forward to continuing to work with this interdisciplinary team during my postdoc, building on research from my PhD and exploring new areas to apply environmental impact assessment in the water value chain.”