February 26, 2013
Stephen R. Smith is Professor of Bioresource Systems in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Imperial College London. Prof. Smith has 25 years of experience investigating the treatment and agronomic properties of sludges and organic wastes recycled to land and their environmental impact, including nutrients, potentially toxic elements, organic contaminants and pathogens. He joined WRc (Water Research Centre) in 1989 as a senior soil scientist responsible for research programs on the agricultural recycling of sewage sludge and moved to Imperial College in 1997 as a lecturer in Environmental Engineering. He has a broad base of experience investigating the agronomic value of organic wastes and was the principal investigator of a number of programs of work funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the U.K. Environment Agency, the U.K. water industry, and Department of Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) on agricultural utilization of industrial biowastes and biosolids products.
He graduated from the University of Reading with a B.Sc. in Horticulture in 1983 and received his PhD, also at Reading, on the horticultural and agricultural reuse of biosolids products.