WashU teams win second, third place at WEFTEC student design contest

Students presented their projects at nation’s largest wastewater conference

Channing Suhl 11.05.2025

Pictured (l – r): Jason He, Grace Duong, Alexa Wienhoff, Lindsey Feeley, Naomika Raveendran, WEF vice president Paul Schuler

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Students in the Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering in the McKelvey School of Engineering won second and third place in the student design contest at the Water Environment Federation Technical Exhibition and Conference (WEFTEC) held Sept. 27-Oct. 1 in Chicago.

Both teams, led by Grace Duong, an Olin-Chancellor’s Fellow and second-year doctoral student, and advised by Zhen (Jason) He, the Laura & William Jens Professor in the Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering, competed against peer institutions. Students choose to participate in one of three categories: wastewater design, water environment and circular water economy. In each category, students must identify a real-world environmental problem, develop an engineering solution and present their proposal to a panel of industry professionals.

In the Water Environment category, Duong and teammates Lindsey Feeley, Alexa Wienhoff and Naomika Raveendran won second place for their project titled Remediation: Treating Legacy Uranium-238 Contamination in Coldwater Creek.

WEFTEC2 — Pictured (l – r): WEF vice president Paul Schuler, Grace Duong, Paloma Paiva Santiago, Sally Carrington, Soyoung Park, Jason He

In the Wastewater category, Duong and teammates Sally Carrington, Paloma Paiva Santiago, Soyoung Park and Kate Martin won third place for their project titled Microbial Electrosynthesis for Biogas Purification: Renewable Natural Gas (RNG) Production.

The WashU WEFTEC teams were supported by funding from the Missouri Water Environment Association; additional funding from WashU's Center for Water Innovation and the Central States Water Environment Association supported the teams in the 2025 Midwest Student Design Competition regional competition held in April, where both teams won first place in their categories.

WEFTEC is the largest water quality exhibition in North America, attracting a wide cross-section of the global water sector each year. The Water Environment Federation is a not-for-profit technical and educational organization of more than 30,000 individual members and 75 affiliated member associations representing water quality professionals around the world.