Ohio University professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering receives the university's highest honor for her work that transforms waste into resources.
An Ohio University professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering was honored for her achievements during Tuesday night's Distinguished Professor Reception and Lecture.
Gerardine Botte, who was named the 2015 Distinguished Professor last May, discussed the potential of her “pee-to-power” process during a reception, portrait reveal and lecture in Baker Center.
After President Roderick McDavis unveiled a portrait of Botte that will be permanently placed in Alden Library, Botte delivered a lecture titled “Pee to Power: Hollywood and Rolling Stone?” Over 240 people had reserved seats for the event, Office Manager to Executive Staff Anita Leach said.
The Distinguished Professor Award is presented by OU's president, the Board of Trustees and faculty. It is the highest Ohio University honor, McDavis said.
“What I am presenting today is a demonstration of a platform,” Botte said. “Everything that we’ve been doing is based on science and technology. The next step is expanding the opportunities.”
Her original inspiration behind choosing her field of study was Jodie Foster’s role in the 1997 film Contact. The line “math is the only universal language” stuck with her, but she never expected to be the subject of a Rolling Stone article because of her research, Botte said.
Botte’s pee-to-power process turns the waste of a growing population into a sustainable energy resource, but that isn’t her only project. Currently, Botte has 20 patents and 30 pending patents, McDavis said.
“I am so proud of her,” Botte’s mother-in-law Marianne Bedell said. “She is constantly researching. Her success doesn’t come without its sacrifices.”
Botte has published more than 129 works in total and she is the director of the Center for Electrochemical Engineering at the Russ College of Engineering and Technology, which she started as a research lab and expanded to a 20,000 square foot facility, last year’s Distinguished Professor Christopher France, professor of psychology, said.
Botte hopes that her work will be the base for creating portable dialysis machines and urea sensors, biomedical devices that can provide information about kidney disease. She would also like to see someone explore the psychological side of why the idea of “pee” affects people in a genuinely negative way, she said.
{{tncms-asset app="editorial" id="cf392b84-d9d1-11e5-9571-bbaca3d2fade"}}
“I enjoy seeing Gerardine speak because she shows her teacher side and I don’t get to see her like that,” Matt Bedell, Botte’s husband, said. “She really enjoys it and it is easy to see her passion.”
Bertrand Neyhouse, a sophomore studying chemical engineering, has a class with Botte and said he was able to understand most of the lecture, but he realizes that people who are not in their field may have difficulty.
“Professor Botte is very dedicated to her students, she has wonderful ideas and she does creative research,” Neyhouse said. “It was great to see all the people here supporting her, and I was able to follow along, but some of the mathematical models were still a bit advanced for me.”
@KyraCobbie
kc036114@ohio.edu
