Seth Pedersen
M.S. Rice University, 2016-2019
B.S. University of Houston, 2015
I was born in Wyoming and grew up in Houston, Texas, where I completed my undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering at the University of Houston. During my time there, I became interested in water treatment issues, especially in the developing world and in water-stressed desert regions. I did undergraduate research with Prof. Shankar Chellam on pretreatments for nanofiltration, and then went on to pursue my MS with Prof. Qilin Li at Rice. Since coming to Rice, I’ve worked on a solar-based membrane distillation technology, and am now focusing on surface modifications for controlling inorganic scaling in membrane applications. I am a NASA research fellow, and one specific application I am investigating is water recovery from urine on long-term space exploration missions.