Menachem Elimelech to join Rice University's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

World-renowned environmental engineer, water scientist and mentor to assume new role in January.

Menachem Elimelech joins Rice University

Menachem Elimelech, among the world’s leading researchers in energy-efficient desalination and wastewater reuse, will join the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) as the Nancy and Clint Carlson Chair in Molecular Nanotechnology, effective Jan. 1.

“Rice is recognized internationally as a center for water research. You have the Rice WaTER Institute, NEWT and researchers who are known around the world. I am looking forward to working with them,” said Elimelech, the Sterling Professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at Yale University.

Elimelech’s research focuses on membrane-based processes for energy-efficient desalination and wastewater reuse, advanced materials for next-generation separation and water decontamination technologies, and environmental applications of nanomaterials.

“Among his numerous scientific contributions, Dr. Elimelech pioneered the use of membrane-based technologies for desalination and brine management, including forward osmosis, high-pressure reverse osmosis, and low-salt-rejection reverse osmosis,” said Pedro Alvarez, the George R. Brown Professor of CEE and director of the NSF Engineering Research Center on Nanotechnology-Enabled Water Treatment (NEWT) since its founding in 2015.

“He is renowned for his outstanding mentorship,” Alvarez continued,” having served as adviser to some more than 50 Ph.D. students and 50 postdoctoral fellows, 70 of whom are now professors.”

Alvarez noted that Elimelech’s “bibliographic impact is truly amazing.” According to Google Scholar, he has published more than 560 refereed journal publications and been cited more than 155,000 times. He has an h-index of 206.

“This makes him the environmental engineer or water scientist with the highest bibliographic impact in the world,” said Alvarez, who is also director of the Rice WaTER Institute, founded earlier this year.

Elimelech earned his B.S. in soil and water sciences, and his M.S. in environmental science and technology, in 1983 and 1985, respectively, both from Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In 1989 he received his Ph.D. in environmental engineering from Johns Hopkins University.

“We are very excited to have Dr. Elimelech join us in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rice. His arrival signifies our continued commitment to excellence and growing our department’s faculty in strategic areas of distinction,” said Jamie Padgett, the Stanley C. Moore Professor in Engineering and chair of the CEE department.

From 1989 to 1998, Elimelech served on the faculty of UCLA. He moved to Yale in 1998 and founded its Environmental Engineering program. For five years he served as chair of its chemical engineering department.

Among his many awards are the 2005 Clarke Prize for excellence in water research and election to the national academies of engineering in the U.S. (2006), China (2017), Australia (2021) and Canada (2022).