George Tchobanoglous
George Tchobanoglous is a professor emeritus in the UC Davis Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Tchobanoglous — affectionately known by colleagues and students as “George T” — is an international authority on wastewater treatment, management and reuse. He’s widely recognized for promoting the use of new technologies in four key areas: the construction of wetlands for wastewater treatment; the application of alternative filtration technologies; ultraviolet (UV) disinfection for wastewater reuse applications; and decentralized wastewater management. His ground-breaking work on the use of aquatic plant systems for wastewater treatment led to the first national conference on this topic, back in 1979. At that point, he was nearly a decade into a 35-year teaching career at UC Davis, which had begun in 1970. As chair of the National Water Research Institute’s UV committee, he helped draft the first UV guidelines for water reuse. His recognition as an expert on decentralized wastewater management systems led to his being drafted as a keynote speaker at numerous conferences.
