Dr. Sudhir Murthy earned an M.S. in Environmental Engineering and Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the Via Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech in 1992 and 1998, respectively.
He is Innovations Chief for DC Water and leads the development and implementation of the Authority's innovation strategy. Dr. Murthy creates, defines and translates research and development into product or service concepts. Sudhir led the concept development for several programs at the Blue Plains facility that has led to nearly $1 billion in engineering/construction. These applied research projects were developed though novel approaches of public-public partnership with other utilities and through collaboration with universities. More than 60 M.S. and Ph.D. students from universities in North America, Europe, Australia and Africa, and their academic advisors have been contributing to the planning effort with most of these students ‘insourced’ to research at DC Water in a multifunctional and interdisciplinary setting. This approach is now viewed as a model for collaborative engagement by universities and utilities. In the past five years, DC Water has won four of five Research Grand Prizes from the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists.
He formed a partnership that included Virginia Tech, Bucknell University and Alexandria Sanitation Authority to design criteria for most advanced anaerobic digestion processes. Based upon this work, DC Water selected thermal hydrolysis advanced digestion for implementation at Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant in Washington, DC. He also developed kinetic design criteria for denitrification with external carbon addition. His pioneering work in the use of the anammox bacteria to remove nitrogen is change the way that nitrogen is removed in municipal wastewater treatment.
He is a Professional Engineer and a Board Certified Environmental Engineer and has received several Water Environment Federation (WEF) awards including the Ralph Fuhrman Medal for Academia-Practitioner Collaboration, the George Gascoigne Medal for Wastewater Treatment Operational Improvement and the Camp Applied Research Award. He is an active leader in professional association activities including serving as chair for the WEF/IWA Join Nutrient Conference and the WEFTEC Research Symposium.
Dr. Murthy has over 80 peer review publications and over 250 publications or presentations. He was most recently selected to serve on the board of directors of the International Water Association. Sudhir has been a Virginia resident for the past 25 years and is a third generation civil engineer. He is married to his civil engineer wife, Maureen and has two aspiring civil engineer children: Tara and Kieran.