Kartik Chandran

Kartik Chandran is an American environmental engineer at Columbia University, where he is a Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering. He primarily works on the interface between environmental molecular and microbiology, environmental biotechnology and environmental engineering. The focus of his research is on elucidating the molecular microbial ecology and metabolic pathways of the microbial nitrogen cycle. Applications of his work have ranged from energy and resource efficient treatment of nitrogen containing wastewater streams, development and implementation of sustainable approaches to sanitation to novel models for resource recovery. Under his stewardship, the directions of biological wastewater treatment and biological nutrient removal were established for the first ever time in the history of Columbia University.
In 2015, he received the MacArthur Fellowship for his innovative work on "integrating microbial ecology, molecular biology, and engineering to transform wastewater from a troublesome pollutant to a valuable resource".
Education and career.
Chandran graduated with a B.S.(Honors) in Chemical Engineering from the University of Roorkee, now the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee. He obtained a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering at the University of Connecticut in 1999 and worked there as a post-doctoral fellow until 2001. From 2001-2004, he worked as a senior technical specialist with the engineering firm, Metcalf and Eddy (now part of AECOM). From 2004-2005, he was a research associate at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Chandran joined Columbia University in 2005 as Assistant Professor of Environmental Engineering.