Episode #24: Dr. Onita Basu talks about water treatment, clean water, and the research process

Onita D. Basu, PhD., P.Eng.  is a Professor (Civil/Environmental Eng) and Associate Dean (Faculty of Graduate Studies) at Carleton University. Dr. Basu obtained her bachelors’ (Chemical Engineering (honours)) and masters’ degree (Civil/Environmental Engineering) at the University of British Columbia, subsequently hopping over to the University  of Waterloo to obtain her Ph.D  (Civil/Environmental Engineering). Dr. Basu is a process specialist with a particular focus in water, and wastewater process design. She has advanced knowledge, experience and practical skills with analytical methods, as well as experimental design, set-up and design of both pilot scale and full scale experiments. Dr. Basu, also has been working within a remote community in Tanzania to improve access to clean water. This partnership has enhanced her personal awareness that technology alone is not the sole solution in many communities and the need for interdisciplinarity in projects. Dr. Basu has also been working in the field of upcycling waste organics in the circular economy through novel hydrothermal polymerization methods. Upcycling of waste organics holds great potential for co-creation of advanced water treatment products.  Dr. Basu strongly promotes the learning and advancement of HQPs through a team environment as well as active assistance in presentation preparation, data analysis, and manuscript writing. Dr Basu received a Carleton Faculty Graduate Mentorship award in 2021, a Carleton Teaching Award in 2021, a 2020 Ottawa Chapter Professional Engineers Civics Award and a Carleton Research Award in 2019. Overall, she considers herself to be an “Average Jane” professor who believes the term work-life balance is hilarious and silly, she concedes she can “work well” or  “do life well” but never both at the same time not is she too worried about it.