A team from Georgia Tech has won the Grand Challenge Award from the American Society of Civil Engineering’s Innovation Contest with a concept that could change the way engineers detect microplastics in water.

The award is the latest accomplishment for the recent Tech graduates, who began working on their innovative device called River Recon as a senior design project and are now in the process of filing a patent for their prototype.

Every day, an estimated 34 billion gallons of wastewater is processed in treatment facilities across the country, according to the EPA. Now, some of that wastewater will be treated right on campus next to the Center Street Apartments and eventually used to grow fresh produce.

The airline industry has undoubtedly been one of the hardest-hit by the coronavirus as people abandoned trips on tightly packed airplanes to avoid exposure. This almost immediate world-wide drop in air travel in early 2020 presented researchers with an unprecedented opportunity to study how emissions from air travel affect the air we breathe.

Professor Ching-Hua Huang has been appointed the Turnipseed Family Chair, a new endowed position in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering.