Sophie van Velzen (2021-2022)

Winner

Sophie van Velzen (nomination by Doris van Halem)
Dying textiles with iron-oxide from groundwater

Sophie investigated the use of iron sludge, a waste product of groundwater treatment for drinking water, for producing textile dyes. Synthetic textile dyes cause large-scale pollution in Bangladesh, whereas this natural waste alternative is widely available in this groundwater-relying country. Hence, this research has the potential to catch two birds with one key.

When Sophie started no work had been done on this topic yet and by the end of her thesis she developed two recipes: one for dying cotton clothes and one water-resistant dye to use for raincoats, shoes or to print text on clothing. She developed these recipes herself in the Waterlab and compared sourcing groundwater iron sludge, iron filter grains and iron-electrocoagulation sludge. Altogether, Sophie excelled in creativity, independence and hands-on attitude, resulting in a useful end-product which got her invited to present at drinking water treatment company Vitens.

Other nominees

Joris-Martijn van Schalkwijk (nomination by Rolf Hut)
Are rain gauges in the right place?

Joris-Martijn studied in what way an efficient rain gauge network in a region in sub-Saharan Africa could be built in the context of the Trans-African Hydro-Meteorological Observatory project (a.k.a. the TAHMO-project). Using literature review, geospatial analysis and advanced geospatial statistics he concluded that the design of rain gauge networks should be kept relatively simple as there is no such thing as one optimal network while it can be very time consuming to search for it. 

Max Lange (nomination by Alexander Garzón Díaz and Riccardo Taormina)
Automated Preliminary Design of Urban Drainage Systems

Max’s thesis bridges the application of computer science to urban drainage design and it can be the base to applications such as quick pre-design, database reconstruction, and synthetic network generation for machine learning. In fact, we are considering to build on his BSc thesis work to generate realistic datasets for our Research (and the entire community). Max work is a clear example of how beneficial is to mix together Civil Engineering and Computer Science; he leveraged at best his University education so far (e.g., BSc in Civil and Minor in Computer Science).