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Dr. Peter Desmond
Assistant Professor
Educational Qualifications
PhD in Environmental Engineering
MSc in Biotechnology and Business
Entity
College of Science and Engineering
Divison
Sustainable Development
Biography
Dr. Peter Desmond is an Assistant Professor in the College of Science and Engineering at Hamad Bin Khalifa University. He holds a PhD in Environmental Engineering from ETH Zurich, where his research centered on water process engineering. In the College of Science and Engineering, he leads the environmental process engineering group within the sustainability division. His work is organized around three key research pillars: (i) Waste2Resource—Water reuse, Microbial Protein, and Bioplastic Production (ii) Seawater Desalination—Seawater pretreatment, Seawater Reverse Osmosis (SWRO), Biofouling Management, and (iii) Water Distribution: Online water quality monitoring of potable and nonpotable water distribution. The central focus is reevaluating conventional microbial processes in water treatment and distribution systems under the region-specific conditions relevant to the State of Qatar. This is achieved by close alignment with local end-users e.g., Kahramaa, Acciona, and ConocoPhillips, as a knowledge enabler of Qatar's National Water Strategy (NWS) 2030.
Before joining HBKU in 2023, Dr. Desmond was a research group leader at RWTH-Aachen University, Germany, where he was the inaugural recipient of the Junior Principal Investigator Fellowship from RWTH-Aachen’s German University Excellence Initiative in 2021. His research profile is complimented by his industrial experience, as he served as Lead Process Development Engineer at MMS Membrane Systems, Switzerland.
PhD in Environmental Engineering
ETH Zurich, Switzerland
2018
MSc in Biotechnology and Business
University College Dublin (UCD), Ireland
2013
BA in Molecular Microbiology
Trinity College Dublin (TCD), Ireland
2012
- Urban water management
- Seawater desalination
- Water distribution
- Water and bioresource recovery
Assistant Professor
College of Science and Engineering, Hamad Bin Khalifa University
2023 - Present
Research Group Leader
Institute of Environmental Engineering, RWTH-Aachen University, Germany
2021 - 2025
Lead Research and Development Engineer
Process Development Laboratory, MMS Membrane Systems, Switzerland
2018 - 2021
Graduate Research Engineer
Process Engineering Department, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
2014 - 2018
Li, Z., Orlando, A., Müller, S. I., Amman, E., Ding, A., & Desmond, P. (2023). Leaching of dissolved organic carbon from commercial reverse osmosis membranes exacerbates interferences in organic solute rejection during bench-scale filtration. Desalination, 550, 116383.
Ren, Z., Cao, H., Desmond, P., Liu, B., Ngo, H. H., He, X., ... & Ding, A. (2023). Ions play different roles in virus removal caused by NOMs in UF process: Removal efficiency and mechanism analysis. Chemosphere, 313, 137644.
Desmond, P., Huisman, K. T., Sanawar, H., Farhat, N. M., Traber, J., Fridjonsson, E. O., ... & Vrouwenvelder, J. S. (2022). Controlling the hydraulic resistance of membrane biofilms by engineering biofilm physical structure. Water Research, 210, 118031.
Jafari, M., Desmond, P., van Loosdrecht, M. C., Derlon, N., Morgenroth, E., & Picioreanu, C. (2018). Effect of biofilm structural deformation on hydraulic resistance during ultrafiltration: A numerical and experimental study. Water Research, 145, 375–387.
Desmond, P., Best, J. P., Morgenroth, E., & Derlon, N. (2018). Linking composition of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) to the physical structure and hydraulic resistance of membrane biofilms. Water Research, 132, 211–221.
Complete Publication Listing(s): Google Scholar
- 2024; Harbin Institute of Technology Visiting Scholar
- 2022; Best Oral Presentation, International Water Association, Biofilm Conference
- 2021; Junior Principal Investigator Fellowship, RWTH-Aachen, German University Excellence Initiative